


In Like A Lion

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bickering, Developing Relationship, Flirting, Kissing, Language of Flowers, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:01:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 41,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28253586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'There’s a florist right down the street from here. It’s just around the corner of the block, you must walk past it every day.'" Celebrating his boss Celty's birthday leads Shizuo to visit the flower shop around the corner, and a host of unintended consequences ensues.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Comments: 93
Kudos: 191





	1. Obligate

There’s someone waiting outside the tattoo parlor when Shizuo arrives.

This would be a little surprising even if the figure were just standing by the front door. Shizuo has an hour before his first appointment is scheduled to arrive, and while there are occasional drop-ins they don’t usually bother waiting around instead of calling or coming back during ordinary business hours. But the person is standing far to the side of the front door, picking their way along the stone edge of the flowerbed just starting to blossom into the first color of the summer, and from the way they’re leaning in to peer through the windows Shizuo thinks anyone could be forgiven for feeling a shiver of suspicion run through them.

Not that he stops what he’s doing. He’s still a block away, with a long span of sidewalk remaining between himself and the front of the tattoo parlor, so he extends the length of his stride and speeds his approach to close the distance the more quickly. Shizuo’s shoulders are tightening, his mouth drawing into a tense frown, and when he calls out “Hey!” it’s with only a token amount of the professional restraint he so struggles to find for himself. “Do you need something?”

The figure straightens from their forward lean against the window, dropping the cupped hands through which they were peering at the unlit interior. Their shoulders twist, their head turns, and then Shizuo sees a familiar, slightly manic smile, and the tension of rising anger in his shoulders sags free as he recognizes the unannounced visitor.

“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t recognize you, Shinra.”

Kishitani Shinra laughs with what sounds like sincere amusement, with no trace of the hurt feelings that might reasonably come with being taken for an intruder. Shizuo isn’t terribly surprised by this, now that he knows the identity of the person currently standing knee-deep in the marigolds. Shinra might be friendly and generally good-natured, but reason is something he tends to treat as only the coolest of acquaintances at the best of times.

“That’s not a surprise!” Shinra chirps. “I’m sure there are plenty of fans waiting around for you to open. Which is all the more reason for me to make sure I’m here first to stake my claim!”

“There aren’t,” Shizuo says flatly, and comes past Shinra still beaming at him as he reaches into his pocket for the key to unlock the front door. “Most customers make an appointment first.”

“I’m not a customer!” Shinra picks his way along the edge of the flowerbed, leaving a path of rustling but otherwise unhurt blooms in the wake of the long white lab coat he habitually wears for reasons Shizuo has never bothered to ask. Perhaps Shizuo should have recognized him more readily from that affectation alone; then again, it’s not exactly as if it makes Shinra’s appearance less unsettling. Shizuo opens the door and Shinra follows him through without waiting for an invitation. “I’m a devoted lover!”

“You’re a stalker,” Shizuo clarifies.

Shinra shrugs concession without taking the time to even flinch from this declaration. “I’m willing to do whatever I need to do to win the heart of my love!”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. This isn’t the first time Shinra has made this announcement in Shizuo’s hearing, and what was startling coming from a complete stranger has given way to the power of repetition and become part of the ordinary once again. Shizuo returns his key to his pocket and reaches out to turn on the light before he comes around the counter to the interior of the shop. “Celty’s not working today, you know.”

“Oh, of course!” Shinra says readily. “I’m supposed to meet her here. She didn’t want to meet at her apartment.”

Shizuo snorts. “I wouldn’t want you to know where I lived either.”

Shinra’s laugh is ready and instant and not at all reassuring. “Oh, I don’t care where  _ you _ live! And I already know where Celty spends her perfect existence, of course.” Shizuo glances up at Shinra, now perching on the edge of one of the stools at the far side of the high counter with his lab coat swept out behind him, but Shinra is leaning forward to catch his chin at his hand as he gazes dreamily out across the shop and doesn’t see the other’s raised eyebrow. “I told her it would be no trouble! I could make her breakfast in bed so she could wake to her choice of breakfast, a bath, or—”

“I got the idea,” Shizuo says loudly enough to mostly cut off the last offering on Shinra’s list. He turns his back on his present company, leaving Shinra to his indulgent fantasies as Shizuo begins the process of prepping the space behind the counter for his upcoming appointment. “Why are you doing all this anyway?”

“Shizuo!” Shinra gasps, sounding sincerely hurt. “I thought you knew of my endless, undying devotion to my perfect Celty!”

“I  _ do _ know,” Shizuo says as he pulls a chair around from where it is stored by the wall to allow space for him to work around someone waiting for the press of an inked needle at their skin. “You don’t make her breakfast in bed every day, though.”

“If only I could!” Shinra proclaims, dropping from indignant outrage into fluttering adoration with no hesitation whatsoever in the adjustment. When Shizuo glances back at him Shinra has both his hands clasped together at his chest and his gaze fixed on some distant point, as if he’s seeing the glorious future Shizuo accidentally suggested with his words. They are fixed into tableau like that for a moment; then Shinra’s shoulders sag, his hands drop, and he resumes ordinary conversation at once. “Celty has said I’m only allowed to make a big deal out of special occasions. Of course any day I can see her is worth celebrating! But I live to serve her whim.” Shinra places a hand over his heart again, looking pained but resigned to the cruelty of only showering Celty with an excess of affection occasionally.

Shizuo frowns. “I mean why today?” he asks. “What’s the occasion?”

Shinra blinks at him, looking as totally blank as if he doesn’t understand the question for a moment. Then his hand falls from his chest to hit the edge of the counter along with his other palm as he rocks sharply forward in his seat to lean towards Shizuo. “You mean you don’t  _ know_?” he gasps. “Today is the wonderful, glorious, perfect day my Celty came into existence!”

Shizuo takes a moment to untangle the basic meaning under these words from the rambling force of Shinra’s statement. “It’s...her birthday?”

“Yes!” Shinra is sliding off the edge of the barstool on which he was perched but he doesn’t seem to notice for the horrified gaze he’s fixing Shizuo with. “Does that mean you have nothing prepared in celebration?”

Shizuo shrugs. “Celty never mentioned it,” he says, and turns back to his work. “If she wanted me to make a fuss about it she would have told me, right?” He finds the box of latex gloves at the top shelf of his workstation and pulls them forward for easier access. “I’ll wish her a happy birthday when she comes by.”

“ _No_ ,” and Shinra is coming forward from around the edge of the counter before Shizuo can stop him, lunging closer as if he means to throw himself into the chair Shizuo is prepping. Shizuo only barely gets to his feet in time to catch Shinra’s shoulders to stave off the possibility of a collapse, and Shinra grabs at his wrists in turn to hold Shizuo in place for the intent force of his stare. “Celty’s birthday must be celebrated properly! If there were any justice in the world it would be a national holiday. Though I suppose I  _ am _ glad she remains a hidden jewel. I wouldn’t want just anyone realizing what a treasure is existing in their midst.” Shinra’s hold is loosening, his expression softening, but when Shizuo pushes to urge him back by another step his gaze snaps back into focus all at once. “But still! There’s no excuse for you!”

“You can’t be back here,” Shizuo tells him, pushing against Shinra’s shoulders to force him back into the front of the shop. “Go back around the counter and you can tell me everything I should be doing.”

“There are too many options!” Shinra wails, sounding so sincerely upset that it stalls Shizuo’s movement for a moment to leave them standing in the middle of the shop, Shizuo’s hold pushing Shinra back and Shinra clutching desperate resistance at his wrists. “Celty already refused my suggestion for breakfast and I don’t want  _ you _ to have the chance to see her sleepy-eyed and unkempt in the first minutes of waking.” Shizuo flinches and considers pointing out that Shinra is talking about his boss, with whom he has a very good and completely professional relationship that he has zero interest in damaging, but Shinra is tumbling forward without concern for Shizuo’s response or lack thereof. “I have a full schedule planned for her for this afternoon, starting with lunch and then a romantic stroll through the park, where I’ll casually bump into a crêpe stand and offer to buy her one before we visit a fortune-teller, who will read our palms and declare the truth of our endless devotion to each other. After that—”

“I get it,” Shizuo says, pulling sharply to extricate his hands from Shinra’s hold. “You’re going to dominate every waking minute of her birthday to force her into celebrating with just you.”

Shinra beams. “Precisely!”

Shizuo shrugs. “Okay, so I’ll tell her happy birthday tomorrow.”

Shinra’s smile falls off his face. “But her birthday is  _ today_,” he repeats. “You can’t miss the day of such a momentous occasion.”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “You want me to celebrate her birthday  _ without _ actually seeing or speaking to Celty at all.”

Shinra nods, deliberately oblivious to the weight of sarcasm on Shizuo’s words. “Yes! I’m so glad you understand.” He finally leaves the working space of the shop to return to the counter so he can lean in and rest his head heavily against the support of his hand once more. “The only question is  _ what _ you ought to do.”

Shizuo turns back to his preparation. He does still have an appointment scheduled for a half hour from now, and shocked though Shinra would be to hear it he’s not hugely concerned with the question at hand. Besides, Shinra is mumbling to himself at the counter, and if Shizuo has no intention of actually doing the greater number of the possibilities Shinra is contemplating at least it’s keeping him occupied and out of the way of Shizuo’s work.

“Sending a text is clearly not enough,” Shinra is saying, as Shizuo opens the folder with designs so he can find the reference copy for the color he’ll be working on today. “Skywriting is too much, coming from a friendly and  _ platonic _ coworker.” There is slightly more emphasis on that last adjective than there needs to be, but Shizuo doesn’t argue the basic accuracy of Shinra’s statement, and Shinra goes on brainstorming with himself. “Of course her day is wholly occupied with me so she won’t be at home in any case. The best thing—ah!” and he’s straightening from the counter as he claps his hands together in front of him. “I’ve got it!”

“I’m not spending my life savings on this,” Shizuo warns as he turns to look back from his prep work at the chair. “If you have anything weird in mind…”

Shinra shakes his head. “It’s not weird at all!”

Shizuo has his doubts about that. Still, he does feel bad for not knowing it was Celty’s birthday before Shinra’s announcement, and with a full day of work ahead of him he won’t have the time to manage anything that isn’t obviously belated. “What is it?”

“Flowers!” Shinra beams. “You can send her a bouquet to be waiting at her apartment when I bring her home after dinner tonight!”

Shizuo considers. This is honestly significantly more ordinary than he was expecting to get from the intricacies of Shinra’s mind, and it’s not a bad idea objectively speaking. If he had come up with it on his own he would have no hesitations in placing an order and being done with it. But Shinra is still beaming at him, all but bouncing in his seat with satisfaction at his decision, and Shizuo has known Shinra long enough to know better than to take his suggestions at face value. 

He frowns across the distance of the shop. “Just one bouquet. I’m not going to fill her apartment with roses or anything.”

Shinra laughs brightly and waves his hand. “Of course not!” he says. “That was one of my original ideas, but I disregarded it since I don’t know what Celty’s favorite flower is yet. It would be silly to carpet her apartment with roses if they aren’t even what she likes best.”

“Of course,” Shizuo deadpans. “ _That _ would be silly.”

“Just order a bouquet for her,” Shinra says. “And then she can have a lovely surprise waiting when we return from our romantic candlelit dinner!”

“Sure,” Shizuo says. Then he looks at his prepped work station and another thought occurs to him. “Hang on. I’m working today.”

Shinra burbles a laugh. “Well, yeah. That’s why you’re here, so Celty doesn’t have to be!”

Shizuo shakes his head and pushes a hand through his hair as he turns back to Shinra. “No, I mean I’m  _ working_. I’ll only have a half hour off between appointments this afternoon, that’s not enough time to go anywhere.”

Shinra is already shaking his head. “Sure it is!” he says. “There’s a florist right down the street from here. It’s just around the corner of the block, you must walk past it every day.” Shizuo stares uncomprehendingly at Shinra, who laughs and lifts a hand to point. “Back that way, facing the main street. The shop with flowers out in front of it.”

Shizuo blinks and frowns as the first trace of recognition begins to spark in his mind. “Oh. Yeah, I guess I know the place you’re talking about.”

“My friend owns it,” Shinra says, and continues on before Shizuo has a chance to blurt impolite surprise at Shinra having  _ any _ friends beyond the vague acquaintanceship they have stumbled into between them. “I’m sure he can put something together for you!”

“Uh huh,” Shizuo says, still frowning. He feels vaguely as if he’s being walked into a trap, but he can’t see any issues with Shinra’s suggestions, except that they are surprisingly normal for a man who classically has had a less-than-solid grounding in reality when it comes to his romantic pursuit of Shizuo’s colleague.

Shizuo looks in the direction Shinra indicated again, pushing his hand through his hair as he tries to call up a clearer image of the shop in question. He  _ does _ remember flowers set out to splash color across the sidewalk, but he’s never bothered to look up at the display windows to so much as notice the name. Still, it  _ is _ close, no more than a five-minute walk away; and what he could have excused with ignorance before feels ill-natured now that he knows the occasion. He can fit in a quick visit in the gap between his appointments, and he was wondering what he would do to occupy himself during the downtime anyway. Shopping for a gift for Celty’s birthday seems as good a use of his time as any; so he lets his frown go into a resigned sigh and shrugs. “Alright. I’ll go by on my break. Will they deliver them to her house?”

“Of course!” Shinra chirps. “I’ll let Izaya know you’ll be coming by.” Shizuo grimaces at this excess of effort, but Shinra is already pulling his phone out of his pocket to tap out a text and it’s not worth the trouble of stopping him. Shizuo hears the beep of the message sending; and then, with implausible speed, there is a chime of a reply. Shinra swipes across his phone, laughs shortly, and nods before looking back up. “He says he’ll be looking out for you!”

“Great,” Shizuo says, with a minimum of sincerity on the word, but Shinra is turning away before he has even finished speaking, his eyes widening with the sudden bright of attention. A moment later Shizuo picks out the rumble of an approaching motorcycle, somewhat later than Shinra’s ever-attentive ear did, and Shinra is sliding off his seat and making for the door of the shop before the black of Celty’s bike has rounded the block to come into sight.

Shinra pushes the door open to shout “Celty!” and wave his arm as if Celty needs any assistance in identifying her own place of business. Through the window Shizuo can see her yellow helmet dip in a nod as the motorcycle slows and turns in to the parking lot. Shinra is halfway out the door before Celty has drawn to a halt, pausing only at the last moment to look back and beam at Shizuo. “I’ll see you later, Shizuo!”

“Have fun,” Shizuo says, and lifts a hand to wave to Celty as she puts a foot down to steady herself. She raises a black glove in return and Shizuo glances back to Shinra. “I’ll get that order placed this afternoon.”

“Great!” Shinra chirps, beaming with the overflowing delight of Celty’s presence. “Good luck!” And he’s gone, leaving the door to swing shut behind him before Shizuo can ask why he should need luck to order a bouquet of flowers. Shizuo is left in the shop, frowning at Shinra’s back as the other skips across the distance between himself and Celty; then Shinra bows his head to kiss the back of Celty’s outstretched hand, and Shizuo recalls that Shinra’s perspective on the world is not precisely typical. He shrugs and turns back to the shop, all thoughts of bouquets and flower shops set aside until the conclusion of his upcoming appointment.


	2. Implicit

Shizuo doesn’t have any trouble finding the flower shop. He worries about it for the two appointments he has before his break, fretting over the necessity of following the vague details of a memory of flowers he hadn’t really paid attention to before; but when he embarks from the tattoo parlor it’s obvious as soon as he pauses to look at the first cross-street. Halfway down the front of the facing block is a riot of color, flowers of all kinds and hues spilling out of boxes arrayed on a multi-layered stand to show them to best advantage, and over the blossoms is a sign proclaiming the florist that Shizuo is looking for. Shizuo huffs an exhale, relieved to find Shinra’s offhand declaration about the proximity so accurate in this case, and continues down to the far corner of the block to cross at the light before coming back towards the waiting store.

He has to step wide to keep from knocking over any of the containers. They are arranged against the front of the glass windows of the shop, in a space that would keep them well clear of the main walkway, but the reaching stems spill the blossoms out into the space, and Shizuo can too easily see a careless motion of his arm knocking a whole bin over and leaving him with three dozen irises scattered around his feet. He doesn’t want to make his purchase by accident rather than intention, so he keeps his attention on maneuvering around the flowers as he comes up the sidewalk and turns in to the door inset under an awning that spans the space between two display windows.

Shizuo was expecting the overpowering perfume of roses to meet him as he pushes the door open, or the bright tang of greenery, but more notable than the general weight of flowers in the air is the undercurrent beneath them of something artificial and chemical. It must be some fertilizer for the water, Shizuo thinks, but it is so startling against the backdrop of natural beauty that it brings him up short just inside the door, his motion stalled out on surprise. He pauses to look at the displays around him, wrapped bouquets tumbling from tall cylindrical containers and bunches of flowers small enough to fit in the palm of his hand set behind glass frosted with the condensation of refrigeration at the corners, and it’s in the middle of his consideration that a voice breaks through his focus.

“You must be Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo’s gaze jumps up in surprise at the intimacy of a nickname in a voice he’s never heard before. The shop looked empty when he came in, with the space behind the counter clear of any employees, but now there’s a figure facing him with a smile as if he’s just materialized himself from thin air. He’s wearing an apron over his clothes that is as vivid red as any of the roses in the bouquets lining the walls of the shop, but the rest of him is a slender spill of shadow, from his narrow shoulders down to the slim curve of his hips. His hair is darker even than his clothes, a black so perfect it catches the light into a glossy sheen; the only color in his face is at the slash of his smile and behind the weight of his lashes, where his eyes are glinting amusement that flickers almost into crimson.

Shizuo stares at the figure for a moment, as startled as if he’s the apparition his abrupt appearance makes him seem. The other meets his gaze without blinking, holding Shizuo’s eyes with the shifting glitter of his own as a dark eyebrow rises to an arch and his smile drags itself tighter at one corner.

“Do you speak?” he asks. His voice is as bright as his eyes and as sharp as his smile; it snaps through the air like it’s seeking blood for itself. “Or do you just grunt and point?”

Shizuo blinks and comes back to himself sharply. “ _ What _ ?”

“Ahh,” the other says. “Language!” He lifts his hands to offer a mockery of applause. “That’s a promising sign.”

Shizuo frowns, his shoulders drawing tighter on defensiveness against the blade of the other’s tone. “Who are  _ you _ ?”

The stranger’s chin lifts, his head canting up so his gaze comes through the dark of his lashes. “Orihara Izaya,” he says, and sweeps himself forward into a mocking bow. “At your service.”

Shizuo’s frown deepens on recognition as the unusual first name prickles back into his memory. “Izaya,” he repeats. “You’re Shinra’s friend.”

Izaya lifts his eyebrows. “Yes,” he says, drawling even his agreement so long it becomes amusement at Shizuo’s expense. “I  _ work _ here.”

Shizuo scowls at him. “That’s why you know who I am.”

Izaya’s mouth twitches sharply on a smile that doesn’t touch the level weight of his stare at Shizuo. “That,” he says. “And you walk past almost every day.” He lifts a hand to gesture to the far side of the street. “Don’t take much time off, do you? Or is your boss too much of a slavedriver to grant your vacation requests?”

“Celty’s great,” Shizuo exclaims in protest of this patently unfair summary. “I haven’t seen  _ you _ before.”

“Yes,” Izaya drawls. “You don’t seem to notice much of anything for how hard you’re staring at your feet. I keep waiting for you to walk into traffic and get hit by a truck.”

Shizuo bares his teeth. “I mind my own business.”

Izaya shrugs. “And now you’re at mine,” he says. “So are you going to actually make it worth my while, or will you just go on taking up my time without any recompense?”

“Yeah, you look  _ real _ busy.”

“There’s always something I can be doing,” Izaya shoots back. “I don’t make a habit of slacking off during business hours.”

“I don’t  _ slack off _ .” Izaya raises an eyebrow and Shizuo hisses through his teeth. “I’m on my  _ break _ .”

“All the more reason for you to place your order and get back to work,” Izaya says, with a smirk for the slamming closed of this verbal trap he’s walked Shizuo into. He leans in over the counter between them to slouch into the support of his elbows as he ducks his head to look through his hair at Shizuo. “What can I do for you?”

Shizuo doesn’t want to place this order. Now that he’s actually here, he wants nothing at all to do with this razor smile and these glittering eyes and this voice that lilts easy on mockery he can barely keep up with. But he’s used up half his break already, and he told Shinra he would come out here; there’s a good chance Shinra is talking up the promise of waiting flowers to Celty right now, at whatever point they are on his itinerary for the day. Shizuo wouldn’t hesitate to walk out, if it were just Shinra’s expectations he would be dashing; but the thought of disappointing Celty is more than he is willing to let himself be goaded into.

Shizuo sets his jaw and fixes Izaya with a glare. “I want to order a bouquet for my friend.”

“Ahh,” Izaya purrs. “A seduction, is it?”

“ _ No _ ,” Shizuo snaps. “It’s her birthday. Shinra’s taking her out for the day and suggested I have some flowers delivered for her this evening.”

Izaya raises his eyebrows. “The famous Celty,” he says. “But of course.” He unfolds from his forward lean, rising to straighten his shoulders as he lifts his chin to toss his hair back from his face. “I don’t suppose you’ve put any thought into the kind of flowers you want?”

Shizuo scowls. “No,” he says. “I just want something that looks nice. Can’t you figure out the details yourself?”

Izaya’s mouth twists tight, like he’s fighting with several competing reactions before amusement triumphs into a smirk. “Of course,” he says. “You can leave the decisions to me.”

Shizuo glares at Izaya. “You had better not send something romantic like a bunch of roses.”

Izaya’s laugh is so sudden that Shizuo flinches from the brilliance of it like he’s pulling away from the sparkle of sunlight cutting sharp and blinding into his eyes. “Alright, no romance.”

The words seem to offer capitulation, but Shizuo doesn’t loosen the taut edges of his scowl. There is still some amusement glittering behind Izaya’s eyes that has eased not at all with Shizuo’s demand, and Shizuo feels the edge of that laughter like Izaya is pressing a blade to his throat. He goes on glaring, trying to pick apart the reason behind the other’s smirk and finding nothing but glass-slick façade skidding out from under his attempted insight. “And not a whole lot of flowers. I just want one bouquet. Something professional for my boss.”

“Something that looks good, isn’t romantic, and is suitable to give to your employer.” Izaya leans farther over the counter and lifts a hand to brace his chin as he grins up at Shizuo. “Any other requirements, Shizu-chan?”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. “I want to have it delivered to her apartment. And don’t call me that.”

Izaya arches a brow. “You don’t want to do the honors yourself?”

Shizuo grimaces and shakes his head. “It was Shinra’s idea in the first place. And I don’t want flowers cluttering up the tattoo parlor overnight until she comes in.”

He doesn’t want to have to see Izaya again either, though he doesn’t put words to that. There is something unsettling about the sharp lines of the other’s features; he looks not quite human, like he was designed instead of born. Shizuo is never sure how to deal with attractive people, but his sense of unease goes well beyond simple tongue-tied appreciation for Izaya’s striking looks. There is a threat behind the curve of that mouth and glittering crimson from beneath those dark lashes, until Shizuo’s heart is beating as fast as if he’s in the middle of a fistfight instead of discussing the details of a bouquet inside a flower shop. “Can you do that?”

Izaya’s permanent smile tugs sharper at the corner. “Yes,” he drawls. “I can deliver a single bouquet for you, Shizu-chan.” Shizuo hisses against the drag of the mocking nickname but Izaya just grins as he straightens. “Where is it going?”

“44 Shooter Lane,” Shizuo says. “Apartment 16.” Izaya nods recognition. “How late can you take it over there?”

Izaya shrugs. “We close at seven, but deliveries happen whenever the client wants. I can get it there at midnight, if you want. The extra fee is relatively minimal.”

Shizuo shakes his head. “Seven is fine,” he says. “Just leave the flowers or whatever on the front step, she’ll get them when she’s done with the dinner Shinra has planned for her.” He reaches into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. “I need to get back to work. How much do I owe you?”

It’s not the most elegant way to end the conversation, but it’s effective, and at the moment that’s all Shizuo is concerned with. Izaya straightens, abandoning the worst of the mockery in his expression as he moves to ring Shizuo’s order up, and by the time he’s handing Shizuo’s change back to him they have achieved something almost professional in spite of Izaya’s smile and Shizuo’s scowl.

“Thank you for your business,” Izaya says, pouring the words off his lips with the ease of uncounted repetitions. “I look forward to seeing you again.”

Shizuo snorts as he pockets his change and turns back towards the door. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to be back the next time I want to order flowers.”

“Mm,” Izaya hums. “I think it’ll be a little sooner than that.”

Shizuo looks back. Izaya has both elbows braced at the counter in front of him and is slouching forward into their support, his head canted to the side as he smiles at Shizuo’s shoulders. His hair is falling dark before his eyes, but the light coming through the glass display windows catches at his gaze to flicker scarlet beneath his heavy lashes.

Shizuo’s brows draw together, his jaw tightens. “Don’t hold your breath.”

Izaya tips his head to add emphasis to the easy rise of one shoulder on a shrug.    
“We’ll see,” he says, in a tone that only allows the barest polite tolerance to Shizuo’s claim. Izaya lifts his hand to flutter his fingers in a wave. “See you later, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo knows he’s being baited. Laughter is as audible in Izaya’s throat as it is visible in his eyes; responding to his teasing is only playing into his game. But Shizuo’s fingers still tighten on the door handle, and when he growls “Don’t  _ call _ me that,” the words pull free from him without any chance for better judgment to hold them back. Izaya’s mouth drags on a smile wide enough to crease the corners of his eyes, and Shizuo huffs and turns away, shoving the door open to retreat out into the open air again with Izaya’s laugh chasing his footsteps.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself as he shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders into a pace as much to carry him away from Izaya as back towards his waiting work. He has done what Shinra wanted, and made the gesture of friendship Celty deserves; he never has to see Izaya or his flower shop again. It’s a comforting thought to carry with him back to work, even if his scowl still clings to the shape of his mouth, and by the time he’s settling down for his next appointment Shizuo has freed himself of the worst of his strain and nearly all thoughts of Orihara Izaya.


	3. Understanding

The rest of Shizuo’s day passes in perfect peace. He is still holding some of the tension of his conversation with Izaya when he returns to the tattoo parlor, his mouth carries the memory of his scowl as he finishes the last of his preparations for his next appointment; but there is no room for distractions when he has a half-finished tattoo in front of him, and the dull buzz of the needle gun is enough to push aside all thoughts of Izaya’s razor-edged laugh. Shizuo has almost entirely forgotten about his floral confrontation by the end of his next appointment, and by the time he is putting the shop back in order before returning home for the day he has left all thoughts of flowers and florists entirely behind him.

It’s only as he’s putting his phone away before going to bed that he recalls his afternoon outing, and the result that should have followed from it. The bouquet should have been delivered, based solely on the time, but from what he heard of Shinra’s rambling plans and what he knows generally of the other man Shizuo suspects Celty won’t be returning home until the very last minutes of her birthday. The flowers are sent, anyway, ready and waiting on her doorstep for whenever Shinra returns her there, so Shizuo turns his phone off and goes to find the untroubled dreams awaiting him.

He wakes early. This is a matter of habit more than necessity: the tattoo parlor doesn’t open until the afternoon, and Shizuo doesn’t need to be there for the first appointment today anyway. But he likes having the morning to himself, and over time his schedule has found a rhythm that stirs him into the slow process of waking sometime in the earlier part of the day. Shizuo lies in bed for a few minutes, blinking drowsily at the ceiling as he considers his few responsibilities for the day and turns over the possibilities for the simple indulgences with which he occupies his free time; and then he gets up to begin the unhurried process of starting his morning.

His phone is lying atop his dresser, turned face-down where he left it charging overnight. Shizuo frees it from the tether of its power cord as he turns it back on to check for any unexpected messages. He anticipates an empty screen, with nothing but the unnecessary reminder of work in several hours; but no sooner is his phone powered on than it hums, buzzing sharply with a notification of a waiting message as  _ Celty _ appears on Shizuo’s lock screen. Shizuo frowns, concern prickling itself at the back of his thoughts as his imagination flickers over what could merit a message from Celty. But it’s not just one message: his phone continues to buzz, humming over subsequent notifications in such quick succession it becomes one constant thrum. Shizuo’s frown deepens, his mind stirring towards alarm as he unlocks his screen to open the messages while his phone goes on vibrating announcement of them.

Shizuo sees why as soon as he gets his inbox open. There are over a dozen, sent in rapidfire succession over a span of no more than ten minutes late the night before, some hours after Shizuo was sound asleep. The first is from Celty, as is the second, and the third, and on; together they form a flood of communication too excessive to be contained in the limits of a single text. Shizuo opens the first, and then the next, cycling through them in turn until he has made it through a message closer to an email than the quick check-in of a text.

_ What are you trying to tell me Shizuo?? I know I’m not always the easiest to work with but I thought we got along well enough. I’ve always considered you a friend and I thought you did too, at least enough to tell me if you were feeling this way. Shinra told me that you were old friends but I didn’t think you liked him  _ that _ much. Or is it about work? If it’s something professional we can work something else out, I’m happy to change shift schedules or responsibilities! I just had no idea, I don’t know what you’re trying— _

_ I’m impressed! _ Shizuo blinks, jolted out of himself by this abrupt change of both tone and meaning before he realizes that he’s reading a message from Shinra, timestamped in the middle of Celty’s apparent meltdown and received along with the wall of messages awaiting him.  _ I had no idea you felt this way but you really picked a dramatic time to express yourself. I should thank you for the opportunity to offer support to Celty. Or should I be— _

_ \--to say but I’m happy to hear it! Really, you must think I’m terribly self-absorbed but I can’t imagine what it is that brought this about. I really do— _

_ \--challenging you to a duel to defend the honor of my fair lady? You’ve definitely made for an exciting end to the evening, at least! _

_ \--want to know, I promise I’m happy to listen to anything… _

The text of the message disappears as Shizuo’s phone hums in his hand, warning of an incoming call a moment before Shinra’s number appears on the screen. Shizuo blinks, still struggling to piece together the logic of the catastrophe that seems to have struck overnight. He considers letting Shinra go through to voicemail, at least until he’s finished Celty’s messages; but he’s feeling more confused than otherwise with each word he reads, and however unlikely it may be Shinra has at least the possibility of offering some clarity to whatever disaster Shizuo missed last night.

_ “Good morning!” _ Shinra’s voice is bright and more cheerful than Shizuo feels anything should be at this particular hour of the morning, especially when he’s certain Shinra is running on less than half the hours of sleep Shizuo claimed for himself over the previous night.  _ “I’m calling to chew you out!” _

“Uh,” Shizuo says, still flinching from the excessive brilliance of Shinra’s tone. “What?”

_ “You’ve really upset Celty,” _ Shinra says, without allowing so much as a flicker of judgment to interrupt the glitter of his cheer.  _ “I admit I was pleased about it last night, since your callous behavior painted me in a much better light in comparison! But Celty is still upset, and all my attempts to soothe her with the comfort of my presence have gone for naught, so now it’s my duty as her partner to tell you off for being a cad!” _

Shizuo grimaces and lifts his free hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. This does nothing at all to ease the headache beginning to throb behind his temples, but at least it gives him some means of expressing his rising irritation beyond the dangerous tenor of his voice as he replies. “What did I  _ do_?”

Shinra’s laugh is bright with amusement. Shizuo’s fingers tighten on his phone as the closest he can get them to Shinra’s neck.  _ “What are you talking about, Shizuo? Of course it’s the bouquet you sent over!” _

“Yeah,” Shizuo grates past tight-set teeth. “I sent a bunch of flowers, not a death threat. I thought you said a bouquet was a good idea.”

_ “Well, yeah,” _ Shinra says.  _ “I was expecting you to send over a normal bouquet, though!” _

Shizuo’s spine prickles, his skin shivering with a premonition of understanding while his drowsy thoughts are still lagging behind. “I did,” he says. “Didn’t I?”

Shinra’s burble of laughter is answer enough.  _ “Are you serious?” _

Shizuo hisses an exhale past his teeth and drops his hand from his face. “What’s wrong with it?”

_ “Did you not see it?” _ Shinra wants to know.  _ “Hang on, I’ll send a picture.” _ There’s a brief scuffle of sound, a murmur of conversation too distant for Shizuo to pick out the words; then the sound of a camera shutter, a tap of startling volume, and Shinra’s voice again.  _ “I just forwarded it.” _

Shizuo pulls his phone away from his ear to check the newly received notification. It takes a moment for the image to load when he clicks through; he spends the delay glaring at his screen, jaw set so tightly he can feel a muscle jumping in his jaw while he waits to see whatever disaster was sent to Celty under his name.

He’s expecting something horrible, a cluster of dead branches or wilting flowers or something similarly unprofessional. The picture is a surprise when it comes: it looks like a perfectly ordinary bunch of flowers to Shizuo’s gaze, if a little overbright. The greater number of them are yellow, spilling out of a narrow vase like a profusion of sunshine, with a handful of bright pink blossoms studded around the base. It’s ostentatious, to be sure, and nothing like what Shizuo might have chosen left to his own devices, but he can see nothing obviously horrible about it, certainly nothing to merit the hysterical stream of messages he woke to.

He brings the phone back to his ear. “What’s wrong with it?”

_ “Huh?” _ Shinra sounds startled, which is still frustrating but less so than the bubbling amusement he was offering before.  _ “You mean you don’t know?” _

Shizuo checks the photo again. “No? It’s just a lot of flowers.”

_ “Oh,” _ Shinra says. There’s a rustle at the speaker, a muffled shout of  _ “He says he doesn’t know what they mean!” _ directed away from the phone that is shortly followed by a reply so distant Shizuo can hear no more of it than the vague outline of Celty’s voice. Shinra says something else, the details lost to the cover of his hand over the receiver, before he comes back.  _ “You really didn’t know?” _

Shizuo grits his teeth together. “What are you  _ talking _ about?”

_ “It’s hanakotoba,” _ Shinra says, with a tone that seems to imply he’s reminding Shizuo of some basic component of speech or a fundamental aspect of polite society. When Shizuo stays silent he continues.  _ “The language of flowers? Did you really not know what they meant when you picked them out?” _

“I  _ didn’t _ pick them out,” Shizuo says. “I just ordered a bunch of flowers and left it up to Izaya.”

Shinra’s laugh spills to startling, overloud static against Shizuo’s ear.  _ “Ohh,” _ he says.  _ “Well that explains a lot!” _

Shizuo huffs an exhale past his set teeth so it pulls into a hiss. “What do they mean?”

_ “I see what happened,” _ Shinra says, and moves to cover the phone receiver so he can call back to Celty again.  _ “It’s something Izaya put together!” _

“Shinra,” Shizuo says. “ _Shinra_.”

_ “Yes?” _

“What do they  _ mean_.”

_ “Oh!” _ Shinra laughs.  _ “Well. It’s mostly yellow carnations, which mean disdain, and then yellow roses for jealousy. I admit I’m somewhat relieved, I thought maybe it was meant as a message to me and I was going to have to fight you for my Celty’s love!” _

The fingers of Shizuo’s free hand wrap themselves to a fist, tightening down against the palm of his hand as the shape of his present situation, and the cause of it, begins to draw clear in his mind. “What about the pink ones?”

_ “Sardony,” _ Shinra declares.  _ “For irony.” _ There’s a muffled reply in the background and the rustle of his hand closing over the receiver again.  _ “Yeah, it wasn’t him at all! He left it up to Izaya to pick!” _ The hand falls away and Shinra’s voice comes back with greater clarity.  _ “Well! At least this was all just a misunderstanding!” _

“Yeah,” Shizuo says without easing the curl of his hand at his side or the set of his jaw. “Hey, Shinra?”

_ “Yes?” _

“You might want to call your friend.”

_ “Oh?” _ Shinra sounds vaguely intrigued more than particularly concerned, but Shizuo isn’t paying much attention to the receiver of his phone anymore.  _ “Why’s that?” _

“Cause I’m about to go to his flower shop and I’m going to  _ kill _ him.”

Shizuo pulls the phone away from his ear and hangs up without waiting for Shinra’s response. He drags open the door to his closet, replacing the undershirt he wore to bed with a t-shirt and pulling on a pair of jeans over his boxers before he slams the closet shut and stomps to the front door to push his feet into his shoes so he can storm out of the house and down the sidewalk towards the shopping district.

His phones buzzes in his pocket once, with a new text message or perhaps a phone call from Shinra, but Shizuo doesn’t bother answering. His attention is fixed on a single person, and until he’s dealt with them he lacks the focus to spare for any other problem.


	4. Engage

The flower shop is open when Shizuo arrives.

This is for the best. Shizuo hadn’t considered what to do if he arrived to find the windows darkened and the shop unoccupied. He would like to believe he would have had the composure to station himself to wait until opening, or even to return home to cool off in the privacy of his own apartment, but he can’t discount the possibility of his temper curling itself to a fist and shattering one of the full-length display windows on the impulse of the rage he has never been able to properly control. The anger in him has nothing to do with the shop, and everything to do with its owner, and so in the end he is glad when he veers around the corner and finds the windows illuminated and several sprays of bouquets arranged on the sidewalk. He feels a brief flicker of satisfaction at finding the situation waiting for him just as he might wish it; and then the door to the shop swings open to allow a slim form in a red apron to emerge with a bucket of flowers braced between both hands, and Shizuo’s attention for everything else evaporates like water cast onto the hot metal of Orihara Izaya’s presence.

Shizuo doesn’t say anything, doesn’t so much as move in the first moment of seeing the other. His body has gone too absolutely tense for him to stir by as much as a step for the span of an inhale. But Izaya’s head turns instantly, his attention jerking sideways as if Shizuo had shouted at him, and his smile is almost as fast, flickering into existence as quickly as the bright of his gaze catches to recognition against Shizuo standing outside his shop.

“Ah, Shizu-chan.” He turns to face Shizuo, twisting with the grace of a dancer in spite of the weight of the flower-laden bucket he’s holding in front of him. His head tips to the side, his eyes open wide on mock interest. “Back for more already?”

Shizuo’s teeth grit together, bracing strain one on the other as sound rumbles a warning against the inside of his chest. “ _Izaya_.”

Izaya raises a dark eyebrow. “You remembered my name,” he says. “Oh, Shizu-chan, I’m  _ touched_.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo growls. “You’ll be a lot more than that when I’m done with you.”

“Promises, promises,” Izaya purrs, his lashes fluttering in harmony with the flirtation lilting over his voice. “Right here on the sidewalk, then?”

“Sure,” Shizuo says. “It’s your funeral.” And he lunges forward with all the speed his tight-wound muscles can provide him.

There is no way Izaya could have seen him coming. Shizuo hadn’t so much as curled his hands to fist at his sides before his sudden burst of action; there was no extra roughness on his voice to speak to his intent. But Izaya moves as instantly as Shizuo does, as if his own action was just waiting on Shizuo’s to loose itself, and instead of Izaya’s startled face Shizuo finds himself met with the bucket of flowers Izaya has just thrown forward to meet him. He comes up short, reaching out to catch the edge of the container on instinct, and in front of him Izaya darts sideways with such speed that Shizuo has barely had time to blink before the other has vanished through the door of the shop.

Shizuo hisses temper. “ _Izaya_ ” and he’s casting the container aside, throwing it hard enough that it clatters into another display and topples them both to spill bundles of colorful blossoms and a wash of green-tinted water across the sidewalk. He lets them fall without looking back, choosing instead to turn towards the door of the shop and yank it open hard enough to clatter the bell hung over it into terrified silence. “Izaya, get  _ back _ here.”

“Why?” Izaya asks. He’s standing behind the counter as if the low barrier of wood is anything like enough to stop Shizuo’s approach, though he’s still carrying the visible tension of anticipation across his shoulders as he watches Shizuo draw nearer. He leans farther back as Shizuo comes in, his hands outstretched to rest his fingertips at the edge of the surface like a talisman but the rest of his body tightening in preparation to bolt out of Shizuo’s reach. “You think I should voluntarily offer myself up for a beating?” He huffs a laugh past the strain of his smile, though his eyes stay dark and fixed on every move Shizuo takes towards him. “You have high expectations of florists, Shizu-chan.”

“Clearly,” Shizuo says, and brings both his hands down flat against the top of the countertop with force enough that the wood creaks protest. Izaya’s eyebrow twitches upward fractionally but he refrains from any overt comment, and he doesn’t lean back when Shizuo tips in across the counter towards him. “Like expecting that when I order a bouquet of flowers for a friend it’s going to be  _ friendly_.”

A grin pulls itself free of Izaya’s tense expression to drag a steep angle at the corner of his mouth. “Ah,” he says. A little of the strain along his shoulders loosens, as if in recognition. “You  _ did _ notice. I wondered if you would.”

“Of  _ course _ I noticed,” Shizuo seethes. “I woke this morning to eight text messages from my boss panicking that I was trying to...to—”

“Express your latent disdain for her and desire to remove yourself from any further interaction?” Izaya suggests. He opens his eyes wide, blinking in a show of innocence in answer to the glare Shizuo fixes him with. “Well, that  _ is _ what you were implying. What else was she supposed to think?”

Shizuo jerks his head to shake off this distraction and leans farther over the counter. “I’m not mad at  _ Celty_.”

Izaya fails to move backwards at all, which means that Shizuo is mere inches away when the smirk at his mouth climbs to arch dark curves of his brows. “Why, Shizu-chan, are you trying to tell me something?” He cocks his head to the side and twists his smile tighter at one corner. “I could direct you to the  _ perfect _ bouquet for this occasion.”

Shizuo takes a swing at him. He can’t help it: Izaya is so close, and flashing the taunt of that smirk, and Shizuo’s words are too tangled in his own temper to keep up with the pace of Izaya’s mockery. He feels a flash of regret as his fist comes up, the rational part of his mind flinching from the outcome of this even as the necessity of rage overrules its self-restraint; but his blow finds nothing but open air, his knuckles barely brushing the ends of Izaya’s hair as the other leans sharply back from his hold at the edge of the counter to dodge Shizuo’s punch by the distance of a breath. Shizuo has to slam his other hand onto the counter to save the empty blow from toppling him into a fall, and Izaya is leaning back in as rapidly as he swung backwards so his shoulders cast a shadow over Shizuo’s heavy lean on the counter.

“I’m actually impressed,” he drawls, locking his elbows out so he can tip himself forward and swing his weight over the support of his hands. “I didn’t think you’d realize what it meant.”

Shizuo scoffs in the back of his throat as he glares up at Izaya. “You didn’t think I’d see the flowers?”

“I didn’t think you were  _ literate_.” Shizuo’s fingers at the counter curl in on themselves and Izaya angles back again as he  _ tsk_s a warning. “Careful there, Shizu-chan, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, straightening to stand upright and regain one of his few remaining advantages in his greater height. “Then it’s just  _ satisfying_.”

Izaya’s mouth twists. “Why, Shizu-chan, is that a  _ threat_?”

“For you? A promise.”

It  _ would _ be satisfying to lunge over the minimal barrier of the counter. There’s nowhere left for Izaya to go; Shizuo can see the whole back space of the shop, and the only door is the one behind his shoulders. He could fist his grip into the front of Izaya’s dark shirt, could fix Izaya’s too-quick feet still and answer the taunt of that smile with the reply of his tight-clenched fist; but the patter of conversation is drawing seconds with it, and the passage of time is unravelling the first flare of insane temper that carried Shizuo out of his house and storming down the sidewalk to the flower shop. Adrenaline is still running hot in his veins, tense in his shoulders and quivering in his arms, but the vicious strength of anger is retreating like the tide, and in its wake he can feel his hands trembling even clenched at his sides. Shizuo ducks his head, glaring at the inoffensive dark of the counter instead of the teasing dare in Izaya’s stare, before he shuts his eyes and breathes out with force enough to loosen the grip of his fingernails digging in against his palms. He works his hands once, flexing his fingers to shake the curl of pressure that so seized them, and then he lifts his head to look back at Izaya.

Izaya’s watching him from the other side of the counter, his eyebrows raised and gaze considering. His mouth is still curved up on the trailing edge of his smirk, but the strain of intention is gone to leave him looking more bemused than anything else.

“Wow,” he drawls. “And here I thought you’d be taking payment out of my body.” He rocks back in against the counter, the thrumming length of his form capitulating into an easy slouch. “You have surprising depths to you, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo bares his teeth in a growl. “Don’t push it, Izaya.”

“Ooh,” Izaya purrs. “Yes, I’m terrified by your masculine posturing. Will you start beating your chest next?” Shizuo scowls and Izaya braces his chin in one hand to grin up at him. “You ordered a bouquet of flowers for your boss. I put one together for you. I don’t see anything worth complaining about.”

Shizuo reels back, his simmering temper more doused than otherwise by the absurdity of this claim. “ _Excuse _ me?”

“You wanted flowers,” Izaya repeats, speaking so slowly the cadence of his speech becomes a mockery in itself. “I provided flowers. Where exactly did I violate the rules of our transaction?”

“I asked for something  _ professional_,” Shizuo reminds him. “Not a floral declaration of war.”

“You wanted something for your boss,” Izaya says. “There’s a lot of people who can’t manage even a veneer of politeness for their employer.”

“I’m not  _ most people_.”

“And I don’t know you,” Izaya fires back. “You should have been more specific in your order, Shizu-chan.” He tips his head sharply to the side, his mouth flickering bright onto a teasing smile. “Don’t leave such a big loophole for me next time.”

Shizuo hisses in the back of his throat. “Fine,” he says. “Next time I’ll make sure the loop ends up around your neck.”

Izaya grins, as brilliantly amused as if Shizuo is purring an innuendo instead of growling over a threat. “I’ll look forward to it,” he says. “Is that everything for today?”

Shizuo bares his teeth and shakes his head sharply. “And ever, I hope,” he says, turning to give Izaya his shoulders as he moves out of the room. “If it’s a decade before I see you again it’ll be too soon.”

“Till too soon, then,” Izaya calls after him. “I’ll look forward to it, Shizu-chan!” Shizuo twists just enough to flip Izaya off without actually looking at him, but the only answer he gets is a crackle of laughter bright enough to clench all the muscles across his shoulders into a spasm of fury.

He shoves the door open to let himself back out of the shop and into the open air of the city. The sidewalk is a mess of blossoms where the two containers Shizuo overturned in his initial approach have spilled their contents to a curtain of flowers over the pavement. Shizuo hesitates, thinking of leaving them there for Izaya to retrieve; but he doesn’t want to provide any excuse for future interactions, and in the easing of his temper guilt is stepping in to hunch his shoulders with the shame of his impulsive actions. Shizuo stares at the sidewalk, his teeth pressed tight together and his jaw flexing on lingering irritation; and then he steps forward to seize the handle of one of the containers and turn it upright to catch the flowers he scoops up from the sidewalk.

It only takes a few minutes to return the flowers to their containers, a little damp from the spill of water across them but otherwise none the worse for wear. Shizuo works in peace, without the interruption of the door opening or a voice calling out to him, but his shoulders stay tight, his cheeks stay dark with self-conscious color. He pauses as he gets to his feet from depositing the last of the flowers, the back of his neck prickling with the awareness of eyes on him; and then he lifts his head, impulse overriding better judgment to pull his attention inside. He can see nothing of the interior with the morning sun glancing brilliance off the glass of the display windows; but Shizuo still imagines he feels a jolt run through him with the proof of locked gazes before he twists to stride away down the sidewalk with as much speed as he approached.


	5. Message

The delivery arrives later that day.

Shizuo did make it back to his apartment, and even managed to force himself through a sullen attempt at his usual morning routine. He does everything he is meant to, from showering to eating breakfast to finishing the few chores he left undone the night before; but his attention is far absent, left somewhere behind him in his precipitous departure from the flower shop. He’s thinking of Izaya while he’s brushing his teeth, while he’s rinsing his dishes, while he’s pulling his shirt over his head; the mere fact of the other’s existence is enough to keep his jaw set and his temper seething a dull rumble of heat through his chest even as the morning sunlight spills through the window of his apartment and his phone buzzes the unnecessary reminder of his shift starting.

The only relief he has from the unceasing grind of his single-minded focus is when he gets a text from Celty, and even that turns sharply sideways as he reads through an apology nearly as profuse as her initial panic. Izaya has upset the rhythm of Shizuo’s ordinary day, which would be enough to hunch his shoulders and sour his mood for the few hours it would take him to return to normal; but far more damning is that his teasing has rippled out to affect one of those Shizuo wishes the most happiness for. Shizuo reads Celty’s message—somewhat more restrained, this time, in only two parts instead of eight—and then he offers reassurance that it wasn’t at all her fault, while his teeth grit tighter on the awareness of  _ precisely _ whose fault it  _ was_.

He carries his mood with him to work. There is no escaping it in the quiet of his apartment, or on the walk in to the tattoo parlor; Shizuo refuses to alter his usual route to work on Orihara Izaya’s behalf, but that stubbornness means he has to hunch his shoulders and carry himself past the lush array of flowers that spill from the front of the shop as he feels the weight of dark eyes trailing after his every step. He doesn’t pause to glare into the display windows, doesn’t lift a hand to the evocative gesture he wishes to offer, but it’s only when he’s a full block away that he can undo some of the tension along his spine, and his scowl is still lingering along with his temper when he comes through the front door of the tattoo parlor.

At least he has appointments scheduled. If Shizuo were left to staff the front counter with no more than the occasional curious visitor to occupy his time he thinks he might crush the cash register to pieces under the unwary flex of his hands, or scare any potential clients out of the idea of ever following through on their dreams of body art with one glance at the set of his jaw and the dark of his expression. But he’s busy with customers scheduled back-to-back for a span of solid hours, and once he settles himself to work there is too much to pay attention to for his mind to seethe back across the blocks to the flower shop and the man who works there. Shizuo doesn’t intend to relax, doesn’t make any kind of conscious decision to let his temper ease free of his hold; but as the hours pass his shoulders loosen, his mind calms, and by the time he’s winding a wrap around the arm of his last customer he is surprised to find himself smiling in answer to the easy conversation they find between them.

It’s as he’s reaching for a strip of tape to hold the bandage in place that the door opens again, squeaking on the rusty hinge that has always given better warning than a bell would. Shizuo lifts his head to look to the newcomer, some generic words of greeting ready on his lips, when he sees the boy who has just come through the door.

He’s young, visibly so in spite of the affectation of fashion in his clothing and the bleached-out pale of his hair sweeping around his face, and he’s holding himself in the way of young men too anxious to be taken seriously to realize how much of a disservice their transparent attempts do them. Shizuo takes this in rapidly, places him as a particular variety of hopeful customer, and pushes back from his current client so he can dissuade this one.

“Give me a sec,” he murmurs, and gets to his feet to come forward towards the counter. “Hey there.”

The kid pivots to face him, moving with a speed that reminds Shizuo uncomfortably of Izaya’s impossible grace, though the boy lacks the elegance to make his motion anything other than startled surprise. “Oh!” he says, bright and shocked; and then his expression shifts to pull into the smile of a natural-born flirt. “Are you the tattoo artist here?”

Shizuo grimaces and leans in over the counter. “Look, kid, we don’t tattoo anyone under the age of eighteen.” He reaches out to pick up a printed consent form and hold it up, just in case this boy is one of the argumentative types ready to declare his maturity and offer implausible explanations for why they should make an exception for him. “It says so right here in our policy.” Shizuo drops the paper and crosses his arms at the counter. “You can get your girl’s name in a heart or whatever in a couple years.”

The boy rocks back on his heels, tipping his head to the side in a show of consideration that after a moment he allows to resolve into a sudden burst of laughter. “Oh, I’m not here to get a tattoo!” He tosses his head and lifts a hand to sweep generally towards the fall of his hair around his shoulders. “I don’t have enough skin for the names of all my girlfriends, anyway.” He doesn’t sound serious, exactly, but Shizuo still scowls at him as the boy finishes his display of amusement and collects himself to smile at Shizuo again. “I’m working. I’m here to make a delivery.”

Shizuo rocks back from the counter. “A delivery of  _ what_?”

“A bouquet,” the boy says; and then, when Shizuo goes on staring blankly at him: “The flowers?” It’s only when he lifts his hand from his side that Shizuo even notices the spray of blossoms spilling out from the top of the crinkling plastic surrounding them. There’s a tag dangling from the tied-together stems that the boy consults before holding them out. “It’s addressed for here, anyway.”

Shizuo doesn’t want to take the flowers. Instinct is growling a warning just from his most recent associations with bouquets and the people who put them together, and all his objective awareness that he’s being paranoid isn’t enough to overcome the prickling certainty that he knows exactly who the flowers are for, and who they come from. He glares at the bouquet, trying to convince himself that they’re for Celty, that Shinra has managed to stumble onto something actually considerate from amidst his usual overbearing efforts, and then the boy says, “So where is she?” as he cranes his neck to look past Shizuo.

Shizuo blinks. “What?”

“The beauty these flowers are for.” He lifts the bouquet to gesture with the rustle of leaves and the tumble of color. “She must be something special to merit something like this. Bouquets are a lot pricier than you would think.”

Shizuo’s shoulders sag on the sudden rush of relief that jolts through him at this confirmation of rationality over suspicion. It  _ is _ Shinra after all, probably in an effort to undo the negative associations of Shizuo’s failed attempt at a present last night. Shizuo tips his head towards the back of the shop as he leans forward over the counter to take the bouquet from the boy. “She’s in the back. Got a customer she’s working on right now.”

The boy’s enthusiasm visibly fades. “That’s too bad,” he says, surrendering the flowers to Shizuo’s hold and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I was hoping I could sneak a peek at the gorgeous Shizu-chan!”

Shizuo goes still, his arm still outstretched from closing his grip around the stems of the flowers bundled together. “ _What_?”

“Shizu-chan,” the boy says, and ducks his chin at the bouquet without taking his hands out of his pockets. “The girl the flowers are for? I thought you said you worked here, don’t you know her?”

Shizuo’s fingers tighten on the stems of the flowers, crushing the plastic wrapping down against them as the blossoms shiver under his hold. “Yeah,” he says, forcing the words past the grit of his teeth coming together. “I know who Shizu-chan is.”

The boy’s eyes are going wider at whatever expression is on Shizuo’s face, the color draining from his face even as he edges himself sideways and towards the door. “Cool,” he says, and makes a valiant attempt at a smile. “I’ll just leave those for you to deal with then.” He pulls a hand from his pocket to wave in what attempts casual disregard and achieves near-panicked anxiety. “See you around!” And he bolts, ducking out of the door and away down the sidewalk before Shizuo can decide if he even wants to restrain his expression, much less figure out how to achieve that.

Shizuo looks down at the bouquet he presently has a deathgrip on. There is a rain of loose petals that fall across the counter when he loosens his hold, but the profusion of flowers is dense enough that they look none the worse for wear as he turns them upright to glare at them. Most of the flowers are small, clusters of tiny white blossoms spangled with yellow stars of some different variety; the most notable are the splashes of brilliant pink arrayed at the ends of branches solid enough that they crack under Shizuo’s hold instead of crushing. Shizuo recognizes none of them at a glance, much less their implicit meaning, but he can make a guess just from the scrawl of the name on the tag,  _ Shizu-chan _ written in slanting letters and with a heart dotting the  _ i_. There’s a note inside the folded paper too, formed of the same handwriting that carries as much of an edge on it as the owner’s smile does.

_ Thanks for your help this morning, _ it reads.  _ Good to know you’re able to clean up your own messes. Perhaps there is hope for civilizing you after all! _ Shizuo glares at the note, wondering if there might be some relief to be found in shredding it to pieces in place of Izaya himself, and then the sound of footsteps announces Celty’s return from the back room.

“We’re running a little late,” she says. “Shizuo, could you—” and then she sees the bouquet, and her approach stalls at once. “ _Oh_.”

Shizuo doesn’t even turn to look at her. He doesn’t trust the safety of his expression at the moment; it seems best to keep the force of his glare turned outward, towards the relative distance of the window in front of him as he shoves the bouquet sideways towards Celty. “What do they mean.”

Celty draws closer and reaches out to touch one of the pink flowers. Shizuo can hear the catch of recognition on the inhale she takes a moment before she speaks with forced cheer. “It’s quite pretty,” she says, with all the aggressive understatement with which someone is declared to have a  _ great personality_.

“Celty.” Shizuo turns his head to glance sideways at Celty. “Just tell me.”

Celty hesitates for another moment; then she lifts her hand to brush against the woody stem of the vivid pink flowers. “This is oleander,” she says. “I think this is St. John’s Wort, though I haven’t seen it in a bouquet before. These ones are rue. And this is…” She drops her hand from the tiny white flowers in defeat. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to look them up.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. Celty steps back to pull her phone from her pocket and Shizuo drops the bouquet to the countertop so he can look up the names she mentioned.

The first search result takes him to an online dictionary, with a long list of flowers and their associated meanings in the facing column. Oleander is there under  _ beware_; rue is linked to  _ disdain_. Shizuo is just reading the  _ animosity _ that matches to St. John’s Wort when Celty takes a breath and he lifts his head to look at her.

“I found it,” she says. “It’s dogbane.” She clears her throat. “It means falsehood.”

Shizuo snorts. “Of course it does.” He looks back to the spill of flowers across the counter, beautiful blossoms and vicious meanings; and then he huffs a growl of frustration, and turns his back to return to his still-waiting customer and something that he at least knows how to deal with.


	6. Opening

Izaya doesn’t even have the grace to look surprised when Shizuo comes through the door of the flower shop.

Shizuo wasn’t truly expecting him to. He knows very little about Orihara Izaya, though still significantly more than he has ever wished for, but the awareness that his arrival is probably more expected than otherwise has become clear even over those few interactions they have had. Shizuo is certain that his entrance will draw no more than a show of surprise from the other, no matter how aggressively he shoves at the door, and so he doesn’t bother with waiting for a response before striding across the space of the shop to throw the bouquet in his grip spilling down on the front counter. “What the hell is this?”

Izaya doesn’t bother with putting on an show of innocence, which is probably for the best. Shizuo’s temper isn’t the crackling electricity of fury it was on their last interaction, but his shoulders are still knotted on uncomfortable tension, and while he’s not intending to throw a punch he’s unwilling to rule out any such possibility where Izaya is concerned. For now, at least, Izaya contents himself with lowering the heavy-petaled rose he is holding up before him as he drops his gaze deliberately to the cascade of flowers spilling across his counter.

“A bouquet,” he says, drawling the words as if he’s speaking to a very young child before he lifts the flower in his hand back up. “Anything else you need cleared up, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo growls in the back of his throat and slams his hand down on the counter alongside the stems of pink flowers spiling from the top of the bouquet. Izaya doesn’t even blink at the sound, even though the blow lands with force enough to rattle the cash register and shake the display of vases set on a shelf above it. “Don’t fuck with me, Izaya.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was,” Izaya says, the flower still held up in front of him as if Shizuo can’t see the other’s gaze cutting dark under the slant of his lashes. “I think you may be a little confused on the premise here. Trust me, when I’m fucking you you’ll know it.”

Shizuo hisses a breath past the set of his teeth. “ _Izaya_.”

“ _Shizuo_ ,” Izaya shoots back, and drops the rose and his illusion of distraction at once. “Is this your usual method of communication? A word of advice: humans generally prefer to use spoken language. It’s a wonderful tool to avoid misunderstandings.”

“You’re one to talk.” Shizuo grabs for the bouquet to gesture roughly in Izaya’s direction with the spill of blossoms. “You send nasty notes in  _ flower_.”

Izaya’s mouth twitches on a smile. “I sent you a bouquet,” he clarifies. He steps out from around the back counter where he dropped the rose he was holding, trailing one hand across the edge of the surface like the touch is guiding him as he comes forward towards Shizuo at the front desk. “It was a gesture of gratitude, obviously.”

“Gratitude,” Shizuo repeats. “For  _ what_?”

“For your help this morning.” Izaya draws up to the other side of the counter, spreading both hands wide as he sets his fingers against the surface and looks up to smile at Shizuo. “You cleaned up the mess on the front sidewalk. I thought you deserved my thanks.”

Shizuo scoffs in the back of his throat. “I didn’t do it for you.”

Izaya’s shoulder angles up in a shrug. “I didn’t ask if you did,” he says. “I appreciated it. And I wanted to express that appreciation.” He lifts a hand to ghost his touch across the bouquet Shizuo is still holding out between them, his fingers skipping from one blossom to the next as his gaze remains fixed on Shizuo’s face. “A bouquet seemed most appropriate, under the circumstances.”

Shizuo’s jaw tightens. “A bouquet that means  _ I hate you_?”

Izaya opens his eyes wide. After a moment he even thinks to soften his mouth so his lips part on a show of overblown surprise. “ _Did _ it?” he asks. “What an  _ astonishing _ coincidence.” He catches a delicate breath and lifts a hand to press his fingers to the middle of his chest. “Why, Shizu-chan, did you think it was  _ deliberate_?”

Shizuo’s fingers tighten to a fist on the end of the bouquet in front of him. “You gave me a bouquet with four kinds of flowers that all mean hatred,” he grits out. “Do you seriously think I’m stupid enough to believe that was on  _ accident_?”

Izaya’s lashes flutter over a blink that sweeps aside the hurt in his eyes and the surprise at his mouth like he’s letting a mask fall. His hand drops from weighting his fingers to his chest to fall heavy at his side instead. “It was worth a try,” he says. “You didn’t know anything about the language of flowers yesterday.”

“I can use  _ the Internet_,” Shizuo growls. “I’m not  _ stupid_.”

“And yet you still can’t make correct identifications.” Izaya braces a hand at the edge of the counter and leans in against it, tilting his weight into the support as he reaches out to brush the fingers of his other hand over the petals spilling from the top of the bouquet. “Animosity, disdain, beware.” He cups his fingers around one of the delicate branches, his fingers cradling a spray of white flowers between them. “Falsehood.” His lips curl and his hand drops to press his palm to the counter alongside the first. “And all you got is  _ hatred_?”

“I got the important part,” Shizuo snaps. “You’re not going to try to claim you meant to profess undying friendship.”

“I wouldn’t do your intelligence the compliment,” Izaya drawls, leaning in against his bracing hands so he’s looking up through the dark fall of his hair at Shizuo. “So what exactly are you here to do?”

Shizuo rocks back, startled into a retreat by Izaya’s words rather than by the forward tilt of his shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“You stormed over here with the flowers I sent you.” Izaya inclines his head to the bouquet lying between them on the counter. “What were you intending to do with them? Did you just want to inform me of your offended feelings?” He reaches to play with one of the stems of oleander, his fingers trailing over the pink petals as his gaze lingers on Shizuo’s face. “You could have just sent a text.”

“I don’t have your number,” Shizuo says without thinking through the logic of that argument.

Izaya crackles a laugh. “Shinra does,” he says. “You could have asked him. Or are words insufficient to express your ire? Did you want to issue a formal challenge, swords at dawn, sort of thing?”

Shizuo growls frustration. “I want to tell you I don’t  _ want _ your stupid flowers.”

“So throw them out,” Izaya says at once. “They’re yours to do whatever you want with them, you don’t need my permission.” Shizuo scowls at him and Izaya rolls his eyes and heaves a sigh. 

“Fine,” he says, and reaches across the splash of blossoms between them to close his hand on the crinkling plastic wrapping the bouquet. “I’ll take them back, will that satisfy you?”

Shizuo doesn’t think about moving. His hand raises on impulse, stretching out between them to seize at the end of the bouquet beneath Izaya’s outstretched hand and close to an unbreakable fist. “ _No_.”

Izaya’s lashes dip to shadow, his lips angle onto a steep smile. “No?”

“I’ll keep them,” Shizuo says, speaking with a surge of contrarianism sparked by Izaya’s reaching hand. “You gave them to me, didn’t you?” He yanks at the bouquet to pull the flowers free from Izaya’s hold, roughly enough that one of the clusters of white dogbane snaps free at the other’s fingers. “It’s mine now, you don’t get to take it back.”

Izaya’s chin tilts down as his smile drags wider. “So you  _ do _ want them.”

Shizuo scoffs the wordless frustration that is the only response he can give and turns away from the glint of Izaya’s smile. Unfortunately he can’t move quickly enough to escape the other’s laughter, and he’s still a pair of strides away from the door when something hits his shoulder. He twists back, reaching to grab at the offending object at the same time he glares at Izaya, who is leaning forward into an elbow braced at the counter and has his other hand upraised from his throw.

“Check your interpretations, Shizu-chan,” Izaya calls, dropping his hand to drape easy across the top of the counter. “You missed a few details!”

Shizuo looks down to his hand. The cluster of white blossoms is caught in the cage of his fingers, the tiny spray of dogbane that broke off in Izaya’s hold when he reclaimed his bouquet. He glances back up, his jaw working on anger that hardens to a scowl as it meets Izaya’s taunting grin. Shizuo’s hand tightens, his fingers closing on the flowers in his hold, and he turns at once, breaking from Izaya’s smirk as he throws the dogbane to the floor and strides forward to complete his retreat and leave Izaya to his flowers and his amusement.


	7. Distracting

Shizuo pulls against another petal. He’s not trying to dismantle the bouquet set upright in the narrow vase at the side of the front counter, at least not consciously. It’s just that with a lack of anything better to hold his attention his gaze keeps wandering to the tumble of color just out of range of his elbow, and with the shop empty of new customers for the last half hour his idle fingers keep finding the end of the longest branch of oleander, which has angled itself sideways to dip pink flowers towards the rolled-up cuff of his white shirt. Shizuo has been startled out of scowling at the flowers a handful of times so far this afternoon; in the present lull, with the dull buzz of the needle gun giving a white-noise filler for his thoughts, there’s nothing at all to break him from the irritable reverie into which the bouquet has drawn him. There’s a scattering of petals across the counter, the larger pink ones from the oleander and a few of the smaller yellow and white ones that form the backdrop for the dramatic branches of color; as the petal in his grip comes free Shizuo drops it to the counter and reaches around to push a cluster of white farther away and into better alignment with its surroundings.

He doesn’t notice the sound of the needle gun shutting off. The absence of sound is strange in comparison with the semi-steady hum that has been filling the shop, but his attention is caught in the green leaves and bright flowers in front of him and he pays no more attention to the brief silence than to the soft murmur of conversation that follows it. It’s only the sound of footsteps that finally pulls him back to awareness of the present, and that with so little warning that all Shizuo has time to do is look up towards the hall leading to the back room as Celty’s customer emerges, followed shortly by Celty herself.

“Thank you so much,” the customer says, a hand lifted to press protectively over the bandage wrapping their right shoulder. “It looks even better than I thought it would.”

“It should clear up more as it heals,” Celty says. “Let me know once you’re ready to make an appointment for the next session.”

“I will,” the customer promises. “How much do I owe you?” Shizuo steps back from the counter to make room for Celty to handle the payment. It’s only as he’s moving away that he sees the mess of flowers he’s left scattered across the counter. Celty starts to turn back, like she’s about to look a question at him, but the customer steps up to the other side to offer their payment and Celty’s attention is brought back to focus on them. Shizuo remains off to the side, his arms folded over his chest and his attention still flickering intermittently to the bouquet as Celty offers her customer change and accepts the tip they return. She lifts a hand to wave them off, which they reply to in kind. It’s only once the customer has departed that Celty turns back to consider the bouquet, or more immediately the petals Shizuo’s irritable fussing have left all across the counter.

Shizuo clears his throat. “Sorry,” he says, and comes forward so he can sweep his arm across the surface and clear the mess away at once. “I was distracted. Didn’t realize you were finishing up.”

Celty doesn’t ask what he was distracted by, for which Shizuo is grateful, but she doesn’t retreat either. She stays where she is just off to the side of the counter, her hands catching to twist on each other as her attention jumps from Shizuo to the bouquet and back again. Shizuo can feel her desire to speak like a storm forming in the air as clearly as he can see the self-restraint clutching her fingers tighter, and as Celty hunches forward on her intention to stay silent it’s Shizuo who answers the question she hasn’t let herself ask. “I don’t want to just throw it out.”

Celty coughs gently. “I could move it to the back room,” she offers with her usual careful delicacy. “Then you wouldn’t have to see it all day, at least.”

Shizuo jerks his head in rejection of this offer. “No,” he says, only after a moment recalling himself enough to append “thanks” and an apologetic dip of his head towards Celty. “It’s pretty. Might as well get some use out of it, anyway.”

Celty takes a breath before audibly deciding to leave her question unstated and giving way instead to simple agreement. “It  _ is _ pretty.”

Shizuo comes forward from the corner, drawing near enough to the bouquet that he can reach out and pull at one of the stems again. He’s careful not to crush a blossom in his idle grip or to resume the fretful destruction he had been wrecking on the oleander, but it takes conscious effort to keep his fingers from tightening to a fist against the branch in his hold or his mind from wandering to tug a petal loose. He pulls a cluster of the flowers Celty identified as St. John’s Wort free of the vase and holds it up in front of him so he can frown at the vivid yellow of the blossoms as he tries to fit words to the tangle of frustration in his chest.

“It feels like I’d be losing,” Shizuo says at last, giving up trying to articulate the greater part of his feelings in favor of offering the clarity found in this smaller selection. “It’s like a game he’s playing. First messing up my order for you and then delivering a bunch of flowers just to tell me how much he hates me. Getting rid of them would be like letting him win.”

Celty shifts next to him. “Do you even want to play?”

Shizuo’s frown drags hard at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t think it matters.” He tosses the flower back onto the counter and turns his head to scowl out the front door of the tattoo parlor. “ _He _ wants to, anyway.”

Celty reaches past Shizuo to pick up the St. John’s Wort and tuck it back into the edge of the bouquet. “That doesn’t mean you have to,” she says. “He doesn’t seem like a very nice person.” Shizuo scoffs agreement in the back of his throat without looking away from the door of the shop. Celty turns around to lean back against the counter and face Shizuo fully. “Why don’t you just ignore him?”

Shizuo grimaces and shakes his head. “I  _ can’t_.” He opens his mouth to continue explaining, to offer some kind of logic or at least a reason, however poorly-defined; but the words fail him, they melt off his tongue as he thinks of the edge of Izaya’s smile and the dare of his gaze. His pulse speeds, his shoulders tense, his entire body flexing in an immediate response that breaks past all the bounds imposed by coherency. Shizuo stares out the glass window in the door, feeling irritation crackling under his skin, urging him towards the magnetic draw of the flower shop a block away; and then he turns his head away with a force of effort, and shakes it hard to throw off the distraction of the image that is so dominating his mind.

“I’m going home,” he says, speaking to the bouquet instead of glancing to see the concern clear in every line of Celty’s body. “I’ve got opening tomorrow, right? I’ll be back then.” He stares at the flowers a moment longer, feeling his mouth tighten towards an involuntary scowl again before he twists away to force his attention elsewhere. “See you tomorrow, Celty.”

Celty lifts a hand. “See you,” she says, still sounding more concerned than convinced, but Shizuo doesn’t have much else to offer by way of comfort. He grimaces in the closest thing he has to an apology as he waves goodbye and retreats from the tattoo parlor and the constant reminder of Izaya’s existence standing in the vase on the counter.

It ought to help to be out of the shop, and returning to the familiar peace of his own home; but Shizuo has to fight to keep his feet from turning him towards the flower shop as he passes the cross street for it, and all his intentions can’t prevent his head from turning to look for the display set out at the front. He tells himself he wouldn’t have turned in any case; but the empty sidewalk and dark windows give him the minimal comfort of not having to put this resolution to the test. Shizuo stands at the corner for a moment, his mouth tight and brows drawn together as he looks at the closed shop; then a car slows to a stop to let him cross, and he collects himself enough to nod gratitude and continue on his way home, shoulders hunched and thoughts distracted for reasons he can’t explain to himself any more than he could to Celty.


	8. Flicker

Shizuo’s patience lasts him another two days.

He resists the temptation offered by the flower shop the day after his conversation with Celty by the simple expedience of waiting until the last possible moment to leave for work. He knows how long it takes him to get to the tattoo parlor, and how much time he needs to get things arranged before unlocking the front door for any drop-in clients, and with his commute calculated down to the minute he has no choice but to turn away from locking his apartment behind him and proceed directly to his job, with no deviations beyond a brief glance as he crosses the intersection in question. He stays late, too, lingering well after Celty tells him he’s free to go, so by the time he’s pacing home in the orange of the setting sun he doesn’t have to look to be sure the flower shop is closed as well.

He intends to do the same the day after. He’s self-conscious about his own actions, all too aware of how desperately he is seeking excuses to occupy himself; but he knows without a doubt that combining even a few minutes of free time and a glimpse at the shop he can’t keep himself from glancing at every time he passes will bring him through the door, even if he can’t find a clear explanation for this certainty. It’s not that he wants to see Izaya, and he  _ definitely _ doesn’t want to engage in another one of the not-quite-fights that leave him feeling like he lost, even when he didn’t throw a misaimed punch; but he feels the pull all the same, like a line dragging harder on him the closer he lets himself come to the displays of flowers that spill across the open sidewalk, and he’s not above imposing restrictions on himself to contain the impulses that so often get the worst of him.

It should have worked. Shizuo sets off late for his shift, delaying his departure until he has to scramble into his shoes and is still pulling his coat on as he comes out the door of his apartment and onto the sidewalk. He even goes so far as to text Shinra to suggest that he take Celty out for an early dinner so Shizuo can volunteer to take over closing rather than leaving it to Celty as is scheduled. He waves off her gratitude at his offer, and even if his shoulders hunch forward with self-conscious guilt at taking advantage of his friend at least he can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the flower shop will once again be closed by the time he’s locking up the tattoo parlor and turning his feet towards home.

Shizuo is sure of his calculation. Izaya has closed before him; he almost doesn’t even bother glancing down the street as he comes to the intersection, for how sure he is that he’ll see nothing but dim windows and a dark storefront. It’s the force of habit that turns his head, that sends his gaze skipping down the rows of unmemorable stores that line the far side of the street; and then his eyes land at the cascade of bouquets still set out at the sidewalk, cast into backlit beauty by the light pouring from the windows, and Shizuo’s steps halt to stall him in the middle of the crosswalk as he stares at the very much open flower shop.

The illumination of the interior is the brighter for the dark of night falling outside; it makes the shop shine like a beacon, until Shizuo wonders if he might have turned to see it even without the routine of his usual sideways glance. There is no one standing on the sidewalk considering the blossoms set out for view, no one Shizuo can see wandering through the bouquets displayed within, but Shizuo imagines he can glimpse the suggestion of a shadow through the front windows, like the sound of a laugh murmured too far away to be understood as anything other than a shiver of self-consciousness.

The sound of a horn jerks him back to the present. He’s still in the middle of the street, standing with his feet planted on the stripes of a crosswalk; there is a car next to him, with the driver gesturing confusion at him to move. Shizuo grimaces, his expression as much for himself as for the interruption to his thoughts, and he ducks his head to fix his gaze on his feet as he strides forward to clear the pavement and return himself to the sidewalk.

He doesn’t mean to turn. Consciously there is very little of intention in his thoughts at all: his mind is too tangled in confusion, his body too taut with adrenaline to allow space for deliberate choice in his actions. He needs to get out of the street, out of politeness if nothing else; and once his feet find the sidewalk his body is turning itself, his motion speeding rather than slowing as he clears the street and continues along the path alongside it. He passes by darkened storefronts without seeing them, almost without awareness of the distance over which his body is passing: his attention is all for the glow of light pouring onto the sidewalk, and the thunder of his pulse coming faster with every forward step he takes towards confrontation.

No one enters the flower shop ahead of him. Shizuo wouldn’t stop in any case, even if the store were full from counter to window with Izaya’s customers; but it is a relief to skip the dramatics that would necessarily come with an audience. Instead there is just the night-dark sidewalk, and the golden glow of the illumination from the windows as Shizuo steps nearer; and the door swinging open to the ungentle shove of his hand, and Izaya looking up at once from where he’s slouched at the counter, his elbows braced at the surface and his thumbs tapping at the screen of the phone in his hands.

There is a flicker of something across his face, a reaction Shizuo can’t put a name to. It widens his eyes for a moment, softening his gaze at the same time it tightens his mouth on an upward curve, but it vanishes in the next second, evaporating so instantly Shizuo isn’t sure he saw anything at all and is even less certain it had anything to do with him. Izaya pushes up from the counter, straightening to stand at the other side as he returns his phone to his pocket and flashes the cutting grin that Shizuo is far more used to seeing on the other’s face.

“Shizu-chan,” he says. “I didn’t think to have the pleasure of your company tonight. What a  _ lovely _ surprise.”

The emphasis strips any hope of sincerity from the words to hone them instead into weapons matched to the blade of his smile, but Shizuo doesn’t flinch from this entirely expected response. He answers with a glare instead, fixing his expression on a scowl as he strides across the distance of the shop. “Why are you here?”

Izaya blinks deliberately slow and raises his eyebrows. “This is my job,” he says. “I  _ work _ here.”

Shizuo hisses and waves a hand to brush this aside. “That’s not what I mean,” he snaps. “Why are you here  _ now_?”

Izaya’s eyebrow arches higher. “To sell flowers,” he offers. “Is this your attempt at a joke?”

Shizuo sweeps his hand towards the windows behind him without turning his attention away from Izaya’s face. “It’s late,” he growls. “Shouldn’t you have closed by now?”

Izaya’s expression eases fractionally as he trades surprise for understanding. “I stay open later on the weekend,” he says. “People go out to dinner, sometimes they want to get a last-minute bouquet or send a bunch of flowers as a thank you.” He tips his head to the side as his mouth pulls tighter on his everpresent smile. “Are you worried about my beauty sleep, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo snorts. “Dream on,” he says. “I just want to know why you’re still here when you were gone every other day this week.”

Izaya’s eyebrows jump up again, his grin flashing so wide Shizuo flinches back as if he’s been offered the threat of a bared blade. “I didn’t realize you had such an interest in the business hours of my store,” he says. He leans in over the counter, his elbows finding their position against the surface once more as he slouches forward into their support. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”

Shizuo bares his teeth. “I  _ don’t_.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Izaya returns. “No one said you had to come interrogate me about my work schedule. Did you come by on your way home to check if I was here during the week?”

Shizuo reels back. “ _No_ ,” he hisses. “I just noticed the lights were on tonight.”

“Sure,” Izaya says, drawling such skepticism that Shizuo’s shoulders tense on self-consciousness even though he knows his claim to be nothing but simple truth. “And you couldn’t resist the opportunity to tell me off for daring to work later than you. That makes  _ perfect _ sense.”

“I don’t care when you work,” Shizuo snaps at him. “I just saw that it was different and wanted to know why.”

Izaya arches his eyebrows. “And now you do,” he says. He lifts a hand from the counter to gesture at the front door of the store. “Because my business hours vary depending on the days of the week.” He lets his hand fall again, replacing his elbow at the counter a little farther forward than it was so he can lean in closer and tilt his head to angle a smirk up at Shizuo. “You could have just read the sign instead of storming in to demand answers from me.”

“I didn’t _storm_ _in_ ,” Shizuo protests. “I just came in through the door. Are you like this with all your customers?”

“Are you a customer?” Izaya asks. “I don’t see you buying any flowers. Though we could fix that.” He looks away from Shizuo’s scowl to dip his chin in a nod at the far side of the shop. “You can take a look at the pre-made selection.” His eyes flash back to Shizuo’s face, his mouth twists on a smirk. “I promise there’s no hidden menace in the roses.”

Shizuo scoffs. “I don’t want a  _ bouquet_,” he tells Izaya. “Who would I even give it to?”

“A girlfriend?” Izaya suggests. “Flowers are generally considered a romantic gesture.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“No?” Izaya shakes his head in mock sympathy and shrugs. “A family member, then? Your mother, or a sister.”

Shizuo shakes his head. “I don’t  _ have _ a sister.”

“Presumably you have a mother, though,” Izaya presses. “Or there’s always your best friend Celty. You could pick out something bland and boring to make up for all the unwanted excitement you caused with your  _ last _ gift.”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to buy my  _ boss _ a bouquet,” he says. “That was only for her birthday and it was Shinra’s idea.”

Izaya softens his lower lip into a showy pout. “And you would rather pine in silence for her than stake your own claim?”

“ _No_ ,” Shizuo growls. “Celty’s my boss and my friend and I don’t want her to be anything else. She’s not my type.”

Izaya’s eyebrows jump up again. “To hear Shinra tell it she’s the pinnacle of womanhood. What  _ is _ your type, then, if the perfect Celty falls short of it?”

Shizuo’s frown tightens against his mouth. “None of your business.”

“Mm,” Izaya hums around the curve of his smile, and pushes to straighten from the counter with such speed that Shizuo is flinching back before he realizes there is nothing of threat in the other’s movement. “Well, selling flowers  _ is_. If you’re not going to bother buying anything I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Shizuo snorts. “Yeah, I can see the line of customers really beating the door down.”

“Maybe you’re scaring them away,” Izaya shoots back. “Run along, Shizu-chan, it’s past your bedtime.”

Shizuo fixes Izaya with a glare in answer to this, but he doesn’t have a good response, and less reason to stay. He contents himself with a growl of irritation to accompany him turning away from the counter and towards the door of the shop.

He’s just reaching for the handle to pull it open—deliberately gently, this time—when Izaya’s voice rings out from behind him. “There’s another option, you know, Shizu-chan!”

Shizuo turns without thinking, his gaze drawn to answer the lilt of Izaya’s voice before he intends to. Izaya is slouching over the counter again, his shoulders tipped so far forward he’s almost lying across the support. His hair is falling dark around his features, but his eyes are as bright as his smile, glittering amusement from under the weight of his lashes. “You could always just buy flowers for yourself.”

Shizuo growls in the back of his throat. “No thanks,” he says, and yanks the door open with an absence of the gentleness he intended to display. “I’ve already got more than I want.”

He doesn’t wait to watch Izaya’s grin pull brilliance across the other’s features, but no matter how quickly he moves, he can’t outpace the brittle edge of Izaya’s laughter trailing him out of the shop and into the quiet of the night.


	9. Futile

Shizuo is prepared for the next delivery of flowers. It’s the next logical step in the game Izaya is playing with him, and however little he may be enjoying it Shizuo has begun to at least grasp the shape of the rules. Izaya sent the last bouquet as a way to mock him, to ruffle him out-of-temper and force him into the surrender that displaying them proved to be; he will certainly do the same as a follow-up to their newest conversation. Shizuo showed his irritation too clearly in storming into the flower shop last night, Izaya won’t resist the temptation to needle him about it.

Shizuo thinks about it all night, scowling over his late dinner and while he’s brushing his teeth, and when he finally falls into bed his sleep is filled with glittering smiles and laughter that follows him through a sea of petals for flowers he can never seem to grasp. He wakes tired, irritable and out-of-sorts even before he goes to work to wait for the delivery that will surely find him there.

And then there is a knock against the front door of his apartment.

Shizuo isn’t expecting it. It’s late enough in the morning that he’s fully awake and halfway through a meandering breakfast, but he’s so unaccustomed to visitors that it takes him a moment to even be certain that the sound was against his own door, and another to take harried stock of his presentability. He’s decent, technically speaking, thanks to the jeans he pulled on when he got out of the shower, but he still ducks into his bedroom to drag a t-shirt out of his dresser and yank it on over his head in a hasty effort to cover himself before he goes to the door. It takes him long enough that he’s braced for the sound of another knock, but there is no following noise, and by the time Shizuo is stumbling down the hallway towards his front door he is beginning to wonder if it was a mistake after all. He pulls open the front door, barefoot and breathless; and finds no visitor but an overblown bouquet tipped upright to lean against the corner of his front door.

Shizuo looks up immediately, his jaw tightening in time with the curl of his fingers to a fist at his side. But there is no sign of the the deliverer, not even a car pulling away from the pavement. Shizuo even goes so far as to take a step out of his apartment, striding out onto the path in front of it until he can emerge onto the sidewalk and turn the force of his scowl in either direction, but his visitor has either moved with impossible speed or is actively hiding from his range of vision. 

Shizuo thinks about continuing down the sidewalk towards the flower shop, about catching at the ties of Izaya’s red apron and dragging him bodily around the protection of his front counter and into vengeance; but he can’t be certain it was Izaya who made this delivery at all, however much his instincts are screaming at him, and the cold pavement is harsh against his bare feet. He looks back over his shoulder in the other direction, just in case he can catch his assumed audience off-guard; and then he grimaces and turns to return to the open door of his apartment, bending down to seize the stems of the waiting bouquet as he passes to bring it inside.

This bouquet is a different shape than the last one. The blossoms draping over the counter of the tattoo parlor are a variety of sizes, long trailing branches of pink oleander standing out from a carpet of tiny white and yellow flowers clustered around the base. This bunch is shorter and wider, formed almost entirely of flowers of heavy-clustered petals, and the colors are vivid too, orange and red and pink amidst yellow-centered white flowers that waft sweet fragrance to fill the whole of Shizuo’s one-bedroom apartment within a matter of minutes of him bringing them through the door.

Shizuo frowns at the blossoms, wondering if he should even bother looking them up or if he can save time by just sending Shinra a picture, and as he’s standing considering them a card folded into the space between two palm-sized sprays of pink slips loose to fall to the floor at his feet. Shizuo looks down at the card, and back to the flowers in his hand; then he huffs frustration, and reaches to drop the bouquet unceremoniously onto his kitchen counter before bending down to pick up the card and flip it open under his thumb.

_ My dear Shizu-chan: _

_ I hope this bouquet is more to your liking than the last one. Since you’re so unwilling to spend the money to indulge yourself, I took the initiative to do it for you. What else are friends for? _

_ P.S. To aid in your identification: hydrangeas, mock orange, peonies, and French marigold. Surely even  _ _ you _ _ can’t get it wrong with that much to go on? _

Shizuo’s fingers tighten at the edge of the note until the card paper crumples and tears through the last line of Izaya’s scrawled handwriting. It doesn’t make a difference; it’s not like he wants to revisit the bite of the other’s mockery anyway, and he’s already read the names forming the bouquet cast across his counter. Shizuo glances at the flowers, grimacing for good measure even though he doesn’t yet know what meaning they carry. Then he tosses the torn note atop them and reaches for his phone to dial a familiar number.

Shinra answers immediately.  _ “Morning Shizuo! It’s a little early for you to be reporting the latest news from my perfect Celty. Unless you haven’t gone into work yet. She didn’t spend the night with you, did she?” _

“What?” Shizuo says. “No, of course not.”

Shinra heaves a sigh of relief. Shizuo can’t tell if it’s sincere or not, but the gust of it against the speaker of the phone sounds less feigned than he could wish.  _ “Well  _ that’s _ a relief! I don’t know what I would have had to do with you if she had. I think you could probably shrug off all my normal methods of dissuading competition!” _

“Uh,” Shizuo says. “Yeah? Forget Celty for a minute.”

_ “Forget Celty?” _ Shinra gasps.  _ “Shizuo, how could I possibly forget Celty! She is the center of my universe, the focus of my thoughts, the star of all my dreams! Not an hour goes by when I don’t—” _

Shizuo groans. “Shinra.  _ Shinra_.” The force of the second attempt does better than the first; at least it forces a gap in the tumble of Shinra’s words and gives Shizuo space to interject. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Celty. I just need to ask you a question.”

_ “Oh,” _ Shinra says, sounding significantly less invested in the conversation.  _ “Okay, sure!” _

“I just received a bouquet of flowers,” Shizuo says. There is a beat of silence before he decides to elaborate. “At my  _ apartment_.”

_ “Uh huh?” _

“From  _ Izaya_,” Shizuo clarifies.

_ “Well, obviously,” _ Shinra says.  _ “Did you expect to be getting a bouquet from my Celty?” _

“Why does he know where I  _ live_, Shinra?”

_ “Oh!” _ Shinra exclaims.  _ “That’s easy. I told him!” _

Shizuo growls in the back of his throat. “Why did you tell  _ Orihara Izaya _ where I  _ live_?”

_ “He asked!” _ Shinra answers with perfect, inarguable ease.  _ “He said he wanted to surprise you and needed your address so I gave it to him.” _

“You didn’t think you should check with me  _ before _ you handed my address out to a stranger?”

Shinra’s laugh says with unfortunate clarity that not only had the idea never occurred to him, he sees nothing wrong with his oversight even now that it has been called to his attention.  _ “Izaya’s not a stranger, he’s my friend!” _

“ _Your _ friend,” Shizuo growls, but he can sense the loss of this argument before he has even begun it and he lets it go. “Who now knows where I  _ live_. What if he were a stalker like you?”

_ “Oh, don’t worry about that!” _ Shinra exclaims.  _ “If Izaya wanted to know where you lived I’m sure he could have figured it out without me telling him.” _

This is not what Shizuo considers reassuring, but the fact that Shinra does is too obvious for him to even muster the energy to point out the lack of a denial of the more concerning part of Shizuo’s statement. Shizuo shuts his eyes and grimaces, lifting a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose in lieu of crushing the phone he’s holding as carefully as he can in his other hand. “Yeah, okay, fine. Never mind.”

_ “You said he sent you flowers?” _ Shinra wants to know.  _ “What kinds?” _

Shizuo turns back to the counter and fumbles at the card again. “French marigold, hydrangeas, peonies, and mock orange.”

_ “Ohh,” _ Shinra breathes.  _ “That’s  _ fascinating _. How interesting, I hadn’t thought to use the mock orange in that way. But then again I guess I’m not a florist, ha!” _

Shizuo sighs. “Goodbye, Shinra.” He doesn’t wait for a reply before he pulls his phone away from his ear so he can hang up on the call and open a search for flower meanings. His phone offers an auto-complete in the address bar before he’s even finished typing the search term; Shizuo scowls at it, irritated at this proof of the habit that this process is becoming.

He looks up the mock orange first, motivated by some flickering sense of intrigue sparked by Shinra’s words. But there’s nothing particularly complex listed alongside the name in the dictionary of meanings: just  _ deceit_, which hardly seems worth Shinra’s exclamation of surprise. Shizuo scrolls back up to check the others in turn, in case there’s something more to be found from the collection all together; but it’s all in line with the last, with only a little more precision to the insult carried by the profusion of flowers. The hydrangeas mean  _ heartless_, which Shizuo has to admit is at least accurate given the source of the bouquet. French marigolds are for  _ jealousy_, which makes Shizuo grimace over the memory of Izaya’s mockery in their last conversation; but it’s the peonies that tighten his jaw with the anger they represent. Shizuo stares at his phone for a minute, as if the force of his glare might be enough to change the meaning that strikes with such precision at his greatest flaw; but the words don’t shift, and when he turns his head the heavy-petaled flowers in the bouquet prove as stubbornly persistent. 

Shizuo looks at the bouquet for a long span of minutes. He thinks of throwing it out, of stuffing it out of sight in an attempt to strip it from his mind as well; but he doubts the use of that, when the mere thought of Izaya has been enough to haunt his thoughts without any need for an outside reminder, and it doesn’t seem right to condemn the flowers to the trash when it’s hardly their fault they’ve been made a tool for Izaya to prod Shizuo’s temper into such heat. Finally Shizuo growls, and tosses his phone aside, and comes around the counter to unwrap the crinkling plastic around the bouquet and look for something he can use as a vase. He doesn’t have any cups that are wide enough to hold the spill of flowers, but after digging through his cupboards he comes up with the smallest saucepan he owns, which proves sufficient to hold both the flowers and a few inches of water to cover the ends of the cut stems. Shizuo sets the bouquet into its makeshift home on his kitchen counter and stands frowning at it for a minute. Then he realizes what he’s doing, and turns away at once, shaking his head in an attempt to shed his thoughts that proves just as useless as he already knew it would be.


	10. Inspiration

Shizuo gets the text in the last hour of his shift at work. When his phone buzzes in his pocket he can feel his entire body tense as if readying itself for a fight, the same way it has with every sound at the door of the shop or every dark shirt Shizuo glimpses through the window; but when he wrenches the device free to see the caller ID his scowl dissolves into surprised pleasure at seeing  _ Kasuka _ displayed on the screen. He taps into the message, although he doesn’t really need to; enough of the text fits in the preview screen for him to understand it without the additional context.

_ In the area. Want to meet for dinner? _

_ sure_, Shizuo types back at once.  _ i went shopping yesterday. i could cook if you want. see you in a couple hours? _

Kasuka’s reply of  _ Alright _ really does fit entirely on the preview screen. Shizuo huffs a laugh at his brother’s habitual brevity and swipes the notification clear before returning his phone to his pocket, feeling far more cheerful about the direction of the day than he did even five minutes before.

It’s a rare treat to see his brother. Their parents still live in town, near enough for Shizuo to visit with no more than a bus ride, but the meteoric rise of Kasuka’s career has resulted in so much travel that he’s hardly ever given a chance to actually live in the expensive apartment he rents in the same city as his agency. The hour-long train ride to get there wouldn’t be much of a barrier to Shizuo visiting if there were any guarantee of Kasuka actually being present, but his little brother is overseas as often as he’s in the country, and even when he’s within visiting distance his schedule is packed with television appearances, modeling shoots, and the acting work that has made him an overnight sensation.

Shizuo doesn’t begrudge Kasuka his sudden fame. It’s not as if Shizuo has any particular desire to see his own face on the commercials between popular television shows or to stand still for hours while people point cameras at him to capture every shift of expression across his face. And he’s seen enough of the difficulties Kasuka has in doing something as simple as walking down a public street to know that he wants no part of the recognizability that comes with the idolization of the public. Kasuka doesn’t seem to mind it, at least, which is a comfort to Shizuo, but the fact is that they are hardly ever in the same vicinity, and it’s even more rare for Kasuka to have so much as ten minutes to spare to catch up. The chance to spend an evening with his brother is a rare one, and Shizuo’s enthusiasm for it is enough to chase his current source of stress entirely from his mind for the remaining hour he has at work.

Kasuka is waiting when Shizuo arrives at his apartment. There’s no one standing in front of the door waiting for him, but the sleek black car with mirrored windows at the curb outside the building is easy enough to recognize. There are a few passersby standing in the front of the apartment complex, in pairs or trios as they eye the car sideways and lean in to murmur to each other, but Shizuo doesn’t spare a glance to them as he lifts a hand to wave to the vehicle. It’s impossible to see any response from the backseat, and the sunglasses-wearing driver doesn’t lift his hands from their fixed position on the wheel in front of him, but as Shizuo turns onto the path leading to his front door the back door of the car opens, and a moment later a figure in an oversized coat with a hat drawn low over their face is stepping out to follow him up the path.

Shizuo lifts his hand to wave. Kasuka doesn’t answer aloud or extricate his hands from where they are stuffed into his pockets, but his head tips into what might be a nod before he falls into step behind Shizuo. The minor audience drawn by the car watches them, their eyes wide before they turn in to murmur curiosity at each other, but Shizuo doesn’t bother to muster the effort of a glare for their nosiness. He just leads the way along the wide curves of the path to his front door and unlocks the deadbolt so he can hold it open.

Kasuka takes the invitation without speaking. He takes off his sunglasses as he comes through the doorway, unfolding somewhat from his disguising hunch, and one of the strangers clustered around the car stands up straighter, her eyes going wide as she stares. Kasuka puts his sunglasses into his pocket and moves to shrug his heavy coat off, and as the woman turns back to pull at her friend’s sleeve and point in their direction Shizuo follows Kasuka into the apartment and shuts the door firmly behind them.

“Thanks for meeting me.” Kasuka is shedding his excess layers as Shizuo turns back in answer to this gratitude delivered with absolutely no trace of the emotion that might normally come with such a statement. “I’m glad you had the free time.”

“Of course,” Shizuo says. “Even if I didn’t I’m sure Celty would have given me the night off if I needed it.” He reaches to take Kasuka’s coat from him so he can hang it up by the door. The hat Kasuka keeps, along with the sunglasses that he slides into his pocket. Shizuo lifts a hand to gesture down the hallway towards the rest of the apartment without looking. “Go ahead and make yourself comfortable.”

Kasuka takes the offer without protest. Shizuo is left to shed his own coat and to step out of his shoes so he can push them to the opposite side of the entryway from Kasuka’s. It’s only with that done that he straightens to follow his brother down the hall to the main space of his apartment, feeling his motions come with the spreading ease of contentment that he always feels in the company of his immediate family. He’s thinking of dinner, considering what he has in the fridge and stowed in the pantry that he can pull together into a meal sufficient to celebrate the opportunity to spend it with Kasuka; his thoughts are so far distant from their recent tracks that it’s only when he comes out of the hallway and sees Kasuka looking at the flowers set upright in his repurposed saucepan that he remembers the bouquet at all.

“These are nice,” Kasuka says, reaching out to touch against one of the heavy clusters of hydrangea blossoms. “Are you dating someone?”

Shizuo blinks hard, any thought of explanation knocked entirely out of his head by the unexpected angle of Kasuka’s question. For a moment the two ideas run up against each other,  _ Izaya _ and  _ dating _ in abrupt proximity, and he’s frozen still with the shock of it. Then he grimaces and shakes his head sharply as much to clear it of the thought as to reject the premise. “ _No_.”

Kasuka turns away from the flowers to consider Shizuo. He doesn’t appear at all discomfited by the sudden edge on Shizuo’s tone, nor does he recoil from the scowl that the thought of Izaya has set into his brother’s face. He tips his head to the side. “Are you sure?”

Shizuo strides forward. “Absolutely,” he says, and seizes the handle of the saucepan to pull the bouquet away from its position at the middle of the counter so he can shove it closer to the wall. “There is  _ nothing _ romantic about these flowers.”

Kasuka looks back to the bouquet. His expression is entirely unreadable, but this is such a normal situation that Shizuo finds it more comforting than anything else. “Okay,” Kasuka says, and turns away from the counter to take a seat at the side of Shizuo’s table.

He doesn’t look back to Shizuo, doesn’t so much as glance at the flowers Shizuo has shoved to the far corner of the counter, but Shizuo’s gaze can only hold to Kasuka for a minute before his attention drifts sideways to the blush pink and scarlet red blossoms spilling from his makeshift vase. He glares at them, silently sending a curse towards their sender, before he drops his head and sighs heavily at the brace of his hands against the lip of the counter. “They’re...a kind of joke.”

Kasuka hums. It’s acknowledgment more than any particular encouragement, but Shizuo’s gaze flickers to the flowers again and when he takes a breath it’s to continue speaking as if Kasuka’s silence is the kind that demands answer instead of the simple acceptance he has always known it to be.

“They’re from a florist who runs a shop near my work,” Shizuo says. “I went there to get a bouquet for Celty’s birthday a week ago. It wasn’t my idea, it was Shinra’s—Celty’s boyfriend, you remember?” Kasuka nods in silent agreement and Shizuo continues. “Anyway. Shinra wanted me to get Celty flowers and he said he knew the owner of a place close to work. I went to get them on my break and—” Shizuo looks back to the bouquet, grimacing as he tries to fit words to the intensity of that first meeting, every mundane question electrified as if they were throwing punches instead of words. He shakes his head roughly and looks back down to the counter as his fingers tighten against the edge of the tile.

“ _Izaya _ sent Celty a bouquet that basically told her I hated her.” Shizuo scowls and tips his head to the side. “In flower language.” Kasuka nods calm recognition and Shizuo continues. “Anyway. Since then he’s started sending flowers to  _ me _ to tell me how much he hates me, or something.” He reaches out to yank at the handle of the saucepan with such force that the water inside slops over the edge and splashes across the counter. Shizuo hisses in the back of his throat and turns away to find a towel to sop up the spill.

Shizuo isn’t expecting Kasuka to say anything. Generally speaking, Kasuka prefers to provide silent attention in answer to problems in place of Celty’s more active attempts at advice, which Shizuo appreciates as much as Celty’s suggestions. But Shizuo has only just turned back to spread a dishtowel over the spill across the tile when Kasuka’s voice cuts over the background sound of Shizuo’s movements. “You’re sure that’s what they mean?”

“Huh?” Shizuo turns away from the counter, startled out of his own irritation by the surprise of Kasuka’s voice. Kasuka is looking out the window rather than at him; he looks no more interested in the answer to his question than in the weather. Shizuo glances back to the flowers, frowning as he tries to remember. “Yeah. I mean, not just that. But it’s all the same kind of thing. Hate, lies, anger.” He scowls and pulls against the saucepan to draw it clear of the puddle of water on the counter. “It’s all a lot of wasted effort for something that looks nice and is nasty underneath. Just like he is.”

Shizuo swipes at the water, passing back over the tile to make sure he’s thoroughly dried the spill before wringing the towel out over the sink. “I don’t know what to  _ do _ about it,” he admits, twisting the fabric between his hands while wishing it were Izaya’s neck under his fingers instead. “He’s sent stuff to work and now to my home and I’m sure he’ll do it again. He thinks it’s  _ funny_.” Shizuo turns the towel in the other direction, his wrists flexing and fingers tightening as he glares at the water dripping into the sink. “He wouldn’t be laughing if the joke were on him.”

Shizuo isn’t expecting an answer. He’s talking to himself as much as anything else, taking Kasuka for the disinterested audience that gives him the freedom to work through the tangle of thoughts in his own head by putting them to words for the sake of his listener. But as he lets the towel go to shake it out over the sink Kasuka unexpectedly replies. “Probably not.”

Shizuo is so startled he looks up before he has traced back the thread of Kasuka’s answer to his own statement. “Huh?”

Kasuka turns to look at him. “You said he wouldn’t think it’s funny if the joke was at his expense. I was agreeing with you.”

Shizuo stares at Kasuka. “At his expense,” he repeats. There is a thought crackling at the back of his mind, inspiration spiking to glitter a possibility he’s afraid to reach for in case attention scatters the fragments of coherency loose. “If the joke were on him.”

Kasuka blinks at Shizuo with perfect composure. “Yes.”

The idea coalesces, hardening to clarity as Shizuo stares at Kasuka’s distant patience. “That’s it,” he blurts, and tosses the barely-damp towel over the edge of the sink hard enough that it  _ crack_s punctuation. “I know how to get back at him.” Shizuo huffs a disbelieving laugh as preemptive satisfaction glows through him. “It’s the perfect revenge.”

“Good,” Kasuka says, flat and final, and looks past Shizuo towards the refrigerator behind him. “What do you want to make for dinner?”

Shizuo leaves the towel hanging over the edge of the sink, still showing the creases of the violent effort that wrenched nearly all the liquid out of it. His temper has evaporated too, vanished as entirely as the spill of water, until even when the bouquet catches his eye it does no more than tug a vindictive smile against the corner of his mouth. He has his answer, finally, a way to get back at Izaya’s razor-edged taunts, and with that in hand even the thought of the other’s smile has no more effect than to purr the warmth of satisfaction through him.


	11. Repaid

Shizuo doesn’t follow up on his idea that night. He’s too busy making dinner and then catching up with his brother over the meal, and by the time Kasuka is departing Shizuo is in a good enough mood that he doesn’t want to sour it with anything even peripherally related to Izaya. He spends the evening in peace, satisfied with his family visit and content with the day, and even the sight of the bouquet at the edge of his kitchen counter as he’s cleaning up doesn’t dim the halo of happiness that has settled over his life.

Some of his peace lingers into the next morning, as he wakes before his alarm and takes his time with the necessities of the day, but when he comes down the hallway to the kitchen the sight of the flowers tightens his shoulders once more, and it’s while he’s scowling at them that his passing idea the night before returns to him.

Shizuo’s frown eases, letting the pressure of irritation go as he turns over the details in his mind. It  _ is _ a good idea, even after a night of sleep and in the clear-eyed consideration of the morning; he’s almost surprised he hadn’t thought of it before, for how direct the connection is to Izaya’s floral mockery. Shizuo thinks through the details, working out the logistics in his mind as he wonders if it’s worth it, if the satisfaction of payback will balance the trouble of reciprocation; and it’s while he’s standing there frowning at the flowers on his counter that his phone buzzes a notification from his pocket.

There is no name on the display when Shizuo pulls it free, just a phone number he doesn’t recognize, and the alert is for a message instead of an incoming phone call. Shizuo taps into the message without thinking about it, and for his reward he is met with a  _ Morning, Shizu-chan! _ followed by a string of emoji that identify the sender as clearly as the nickname. Shizuo’s jaw clenches, his fingers flex, and his screen flashes beneath his glare, updating with a chain of messages that come in quick succession as Shizuo watches.

_ It’s been a while since you came to visit. You’re not avoiding me, are you? _

_ Did you get my flowers? I left them right by your front door. _

_ You should have mentioned your famous brother. Heiwajima Kasuka, huh? You  _ do _ look alike. Is that why you dye your hair to hide the resemblance? Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re likely to attract hordes of screaming fans anytime soon. _

Shizuo’s grip tightens against the edges of his phone. The creak of the plastic protesting the abuse recalls him to himself, at least enough to frown and force his fingers to loosen. The string of messages is filling the screen, now; another appears:  _ I can see your read receipts. Don’t I at least merit a ‘hello’? _ before Shizuo swipes hard against the phone to close out of the message app. A notification for a new unread text pops up immediately but Shizuo ignores it, this time, in favor of opening up a search for local businesses.

He finds what he’s looking for almost immediately. There are a handful of options to choose from but Shizuo doesn’t bother with checking reviews or websites; it’s not like he really cares that much about quality, anyway, and his phone is still humming with alerts for Izaya’s continued messages. Shizuo grits his teeth as his phone buzzes with another and taps against the link for one of the displayed phone numbers to call at once. He doesn’t think to check for business hours until he’s lifting the phone to his ear, but the call rings through without going to voicemail, and after a few buzzes the other end of the line clicks to life.

_ “Yagiri Flowers,” _ a disinterested voice says.  _ “How can I help you?” _

“Uh,” Shizuo says. “Hi. Can I buy a bouquet?”

_ “That’s what we do,” _ the speaker replies. It sounds like a young man, perhaps in high school or a new university student.  _ “Do you want to pick it up or have it delivered?” _

Shizuo grimaces at the first idea and shakes his head sharply to dispel the possibility. “Delivery, definitely.”

_ “Alright. Hang on.” _ There’s a rustle at the receiver before the somewhat muffled voice shouts,  _ “Nee-san, delivery order.” _

Another rustle, louder and longer this time; then a different voice answers, crisper and more feminine than the first but with no more enthusiasm.  _ “This is Yagiri Namie.” _

“Hi,” Shizuo says. “I want to order a bouquet of flowers. For delivery.”

_ “That’s why I’m talking to you. What kind of flowers do you want?” _

Shizuo blinks. “Oh.” He glances at the bunch of flowers at his counter, trying to recall the information on the reference sites he’s been using to decode Izaya’s messages, but he can’t bring to mind any of the details except for the flowers in the two bouquets he’s received so far, and he doesn’t want to send the same bouquet back. “I...don’t know.”

_ “You don’t know?” _ Namie sounds unimpressed.  _ “Who are they for?” _

Shizuo doesn’t have an answer to this either. “My…”  _ Friend _ twists his tongue with bitter untruth; he can’t make himself call Izaya that, no matter how little it matters to this stranger on the other end of the phone.  _ Enemy _ is more accurate but much harder to explain, especially to an audience as unwilling as the one Shizuo currently has. He pauses, struggling for an answer, until the silence goes so long that Namie heaves a sigh and cuts off his thought.

_ “Okay, let’s try this another way. How big a bouquet do you want? How much money do you want to spend?” _

This is a much easier approach. “Something small. The cheapest thing you’ve got, I guess.”

_ “Glad I’m not your girlfriend,” _ Namie mutters.  _ “Alright. And you want these delivered?” _

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. “Can you take them to a business?”

_ “As long as they’re in our delivery range.” _

“What about to Kamihana?”

There’s a beat of silence.  _ “You want us to take a bouquet to another florist shop?” _

“Yeah.” Shizuo frowns. “Can you not deliver there?”

_ “They’re in our range,” _ Namie says.  _ “We’ve just never been asked to take an order to one of our competitors.” _ There’s the sound of paper tearing on the other end of the line.  _ “But we’ll do it. Do you want to pay over the phone?” _

“Yeah.” Shizuo gives her his card number and she finishes out the transaction. “When will they be delivered?”

_ “I’ll take them out later today, with the rest of the orders. I can make a separate trip if you want, but it’ll be an extra charge.” _

Shizuo shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s fine. Thanks.”

_ “Thank you for your business,” _ Namie tells him, sounding like she means not a word of it, and the line goes dead. Shizuo pulls his phone away from his ear to look at the flashing record of the concluded call before it disappears to give way to the notification of five new messages sitting on his home screen. Shizuo’s mouth tightens at the reminder, irritation making its way up his spine; and then he looks sideways, at the flowers still on his counter, and thinks of the order that will make its way to Izaya’s shop later today. The thought twists his scowl, inverting it into the satisfaction of a bitter smile, and Shizuo tosses his phone onto the counter to leave Izaya’s messages unread while he figures out what he’s going to have for breakfast.


	12. Covet

Shizuo is ready for a fight when he turns the corner onto the street of Izaya’s shop.

He’s been carrying the tension in him all day, since he shut off his phone outright to halt the flood of messages that continued to hum with a constant reminder of Izaya’s presence and through the strained hours of work while he sat at the front desk and stared out the window, seeing nothing but the unnamed flowers of his ordered bouquet in the glow of sunlight against the pavement. He keeps reaching for his phone to look for a message from Yagiri Flowers confirming the delivery, only to recall his reason for shutting it off in the first place and returning it to his pocket with a scowl tight at his lips. By the time Celty comes out from the back room to relieve him at the end of his shift he can feel the ache of irritation tight at his jaw from the set of his teeth bracing against each other. He can barely answer her wishes for a good evening, and he isn’t think of the evening at all. His thoughts are wholly fixed on the next hour, with such complete attention that the recognition that the rest of the night will continue on from there feels no more than a technicality.

He doesn’t turn his phone back on as he leaves the tattoo parlor to stride through the glow of sunset illuminating the path between his work and Izaya’s. He’s sure he has more messages that he hasn’t read, and is just as sure they will only spike his temper into more of a rage than he is already in; though it isn’t rage he’s feeling, exactly, as he hunches his shoulders and paces down the sidewalk in long, ground-consuming strides. There is tension in him, pulled tight across his shoulders and aching at the back of his neck as he tilts himself forward as if in answer to some magnetic force dragging his whole body across the distance still between himself and the flower shop; but his hands are relaxed in his pockets, his fingers refusing to flex on familiar temper even when he curls them experimentally towards fists. He is expecting a confrontation, the spit and flare of anger crackling between him and the man who has made an antagonist of himself; but on his own there is no fuel for his sparking energy, nothing to keep his crackling adrenaline alight. Shizuo feels hollow, more anxious in his lack of direction than he would be in the comforting familiarity of true rage, and when he reaches out to shove open the door to the flower shop there is something almost of relief in the expectation of even violent resolution awaiting him.

The shop is overflowing with flowers as usual, awash in blossoms spilling from vases and heaped into displays along either side, but amidst the riot of color Shizuo’s gaze skips from crimson to scarlet without alighting upon the particular shade of Izaya’s vivid apron. Shizuo’s mouth tightens, his jaw flexing until his teeth ache against each other, and he strides forward to the abandoned front counter. There is no sign of Izaya on the other side, even when Shizuo flattens his hands at the surface and leans forward so he can scowl into the space behind it, wondering vaguely if Izaya saw him coming and took to hiding as a new means of eliciting Shizuo’s fury. But there is no sign of Izaya, no indication of his presence beyond the unlocked front door and illuminated interior, and Shizuo is left to fall back to the far side of the counter with nothing but his deepening frown for company.

There is a bell at the front of the counter, set out to call for the attendance Shizuo has never had to actively seek before. Shizuo glares at it for a moment; then he lifts his hand to slam against the top. The blow startles a sound out of the bell, the start of a chime that gives way as rapidly as the metal crumples beneath the too-strong blow of Shizuo’s palm, and Shizuo grimaces as he lifts his hand to consider the destruction he has caused. He picks up the crushed bell, turning it over with some vague thought of restoring its original shape, but the metal fails to return to its form under the push of his fingers. Shizuo fumbles with it for a minute, creasing the flattened dome upwards in a futile attempt to mend it before a voice breaks over his frowning efforts.

“You really  _ are _ the embodiment of destruction.” The voice sparkles into the air, so diamond-brilliant that Shizuo’s gaze is jerked up reflexively to seek out the speaker. Izaya is stepping through an open door at the back of the shop, bearing in his hands a vase of flowers and on his lips a smile so bright it stalls Shizuo’s efforts with the ruined bell still caught in his hands. Izaya tips his head to the side and smirks wider as he approaches, leaving the door to swing shut in his wake. “Maybe I should file an insurance claim.” He sets the vase of flowers down at the edge of the counter and leans in to pluck the misshapen bell from Shizuo’s hold. “Or do you think they’d write it off as an act of God?”

Shizuo closes his fingers in tight against his palm, scowling as he shoves his hands safely back into his pockets. His skin prickles where Izaya’s fingertip brushed against him, as if it’s aching with the flush of spreading poison. “I’ll get you a new one.”

Izaya arches an eyebrow at Shizuo. “Is that an apology?” he wants to know. He sets the bell down on the counter and taps against it. It produces a sound closer to a  _ thunk _ than a chime and Izaya’s smirk pulls tighter at the corner. “Don’t worry about it, Shizu-chan. I ought to thank you for your self-restraint, if anything. Are you growing up a little at last?”

Shizuo growls an exhale. “Shut up,” he says, and Izaya laughs. Shizuo watches him lean in over the counter, tipping into the support of his arm pressing to the surface as he taps at the bell again, still smiling at the altered tone. It’s strange to see him while he’s not meeting Shizuo’s gaze; his eyes look softer, his smile blunted from the dangerous edge it offers in answer to the force of Shizuo’s glare. His cheekbones catch the light, shadow striking along his features to pick out the objective beauty of his appearance. For a moment all Shizuo can do is stare; even when he finds his voice it is softer than he intended, his tension bled off into confusion. “You’re in a better mood than usual.”

“Than usual?” Izaya repeats, still smiling at the bell he’s twisting idly beneath his fingers. “Why, Shizu-chan, I’m always in a good mood for my customers.” He glances up through his lashes to offer a hint of his usual threat at the slash of his mouth. “Maybe someday you’ll have saved up the money to buy something and you can find out for yourself.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo scoffs. “That went  _ real _ well last time.” He looks away from Izaya’s smile to the bouquet at the edge of the counter. It’s simple, a cluster of open white flowers surrounded by tangling vines of vivid green leaves; Shizuo thinks it’s prettier than any of the lush arrangements that Izaya has sent to him so far. “Planning to ruin someone else’s life with another nasty note in flower?”

Izaya laughs. “Not at all,” he says. “This is a compliment.” He leans sideways against his elbow and reaches out to ghost his touch against the greenery. “Ivy means affection and fidelity. Daisies are for gentleness.”

Shizuo looks at the tilt of Izaya’s wrist, the way his fingers are cradling the spreading white petals of one of the daisies, and he feels a chill trickle down his spine to steal the comfortable heat of irritation from his blood. He frowns, swallows, speaks. “Who ordered them?”

Izaya’s smile goes wider. He lifts his hand from the counter to catch his chin at his palm as he shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. His fingers slide across the flowers, stroking proprietary weight along the petals. “They were delivered this morning, with no name for the sender.” He beams at the bouquet, his expression so warm it softens the sharp lines of his features into radiant beauty. “It would seem I have a secret admirer.”

Shizuo stares at Izaya. Izaya’s not looking at him; his attention is fixed on his flowers, his gaze soft and his smile so easy Shizuo can almost believe Izaya isn’t thinking about his audience at all. The daisies shift under his touch, the ivy rustling against his wrist where his sleeve has slipped to bare the angle of bone pressing close against pale skin. Shizuo looks at Izaya looking at his bouquet, at the unanticipated softness recasting his features to sudden, startling warmth; and then Izaya turns his head, his gaze catching Shizuo’s before Shizuo can recall his own expression to his control.

Izaya’s mouth tightens, his forgetful smile hardening into mockery so quickly Shizuo can’t track the change before it’s done. “What’s the matter, Shizu-chan?” Izaya turns back in over the counter, dropping his idle touch at the flowers to angle his forearm in front of him as he cocks his head and raises his eyebrows into put-upon curiosity. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”

Shizuo jerks his head. He’s not even sure what’s he’s rejecting, what part of this moment he’s refusing; the action is instinctive, as immediate as the angle of his shoulders pulling him into a retreat from the understated bouquet and the slouching taunt of Izaya’s body lounging across the counter. “No,” he says, his voice grating over that one word like he’s fighting it free of the tangle of his thoughts, and he turns his back on the counter, and the bouquet, and Izaya’s eyes following him.

He doesn’t look back as he shoves the door open to leave the shop, but the memory of Izaya’s smile follows him through the falling night, no matter how quickly he speeds his steps to outpace it.


	13. Reconsider

Shizuo can’t get Izaya out of his mind.

It’s not like this is new. He thinks he has passed no more than a waking hour since their inauspicious first meeting without his thoughts wandering in the direction of the flower shop, without his jaw creaking on pressure and his fingers wrapping to answering fists at his sides. Izaya has infected Shizuo’s life, bleeding into every part of his existence well before he gained the means to bombard him with incessant text messages and flowers delivered directly to his home; it is precisely the impossibility of setting him aside that spikes Shizuo’s temper to such heights, that grates his nerves paper-thin with no more cause than a glance at the flowers at the counter at his work or spilling color into his kitchen.

But something has changed. Shizuo can’t put words to it, can’t clarify the confusion of his thoughts into anything solid enough to bear a name; all he knows is that his hands hang heavy at his sides, now, that he comes back to himself from long minutes of staring out the window of the tattoo parlor with his shoulders relaxed and his mouth softened away from the aching clench of temper he has been carrying with him for days. He is thinking of Izaya no less, printing the memory of the other’s face into his daily life by thought if not by presence, but Shizuo’s temper refuses to flash to the comfortable recognition of fury that it proffered before for no more than the sound of Izaya’s name. The most he manages now is a frown, and that more for his own confusion than for anything of Izaya’s making. He reaches for the cut of that smirk, for the grit of irritation that follows the peal of that mocking laughter, of that teasing gaze: but no matter what he calls up he finds it slipping from his hold, disintegrating into the disorienting softness with which Izaya gazed at the bunch of daisies and ivy spilling from the vase in his hands.

It shouldn’t be enough. Shizuo can list out a dozen reasons Izaya deserves to reap the same mockery that he has sown, offenses directed at him personally as well as those inflicted on Celty for no more reason than her friendship with Shizuo. Izaya’s delight in the flowers that Shizuo intended as reciprocal aggression is no more than the punishment he deserves for the harm he has done to others just in Shizuo’s immediate knowledge. But Shizuo lies awake at night, held to consciousness by the incessant cycle of his thoughts working memory to polished-stone smoothness, and as he turns over the recollection of Izaya’s smile, the unfeigned sincerity of the happiness on his face, he feels guilt sink itself to lead within his chest.

He thinks of it all night, until exhaustion finally gains enough of an edge over anxiety to offer the pyrrhic victory of a few hours of restless sleep. He returns to it with the morning, through the whole of his heavy-lidded shower and the dazed fumbling into a breakfast he barely notices and doesn’t taste. It follows him to work, fixing his frown at the sidewalk in front of him until he is startled to find himself at the front door of the tattoo parlor a half hour earlier than he usually arrives, and it lingers through the whole of the morning, haunting his thoughts even as he loses himself for a time in the necessary focus of tattooing ink under a customer’s skin. He doesn’t need the reminder waiting on his phone as he’s pulling his gloves off: a new notification from the number Shizuo recognizes on sight as Izaya’s.

_ Afternoon, Shizu-chan. Have you emerged from hibernation yet to resume your pretense of humanity? Or are you going to keep pretending you’re not reading my messages? _ Shizuo reads through the text without his shoulders hunching, without his fingers tensing against the plastic in his hand, and when he’s finished he opens up the screen to add  _ Izaya-kun _ to the short list of contacts he maintains. He taps through saving the record, watches the screen of one-sided messages flicker as the phone number updates with Izaya’s name, and then he closes out of the texts without replying and opens up a browser instead.

He isn’t thinking of anything in particular. His sense of guilt is fixed, a knot unchanging where it has settled in the depths of his stomach; he has no more idea how to deal with it now than he did this morning, and his actions have more to do with the idle boredom of exhaustion than with any more focused intent. But when he opens up the browser it loads the last page he accessed, a dictionary of flower meanings scrolled halfway down. Shizuo grimaces at the reminder and moves to close the site, but as he reaches to retreat from the unwanted information his gaze lands on a line at the middle of the page,  _ a smile _ written like it’s calling out the drift of his aimless thoughts, and his thumb stills without touching the screen.

Shizuo is still for a long moment, his hand fixed in midair and his gaze so caught by the phrase in front of him that it takes him a minute to even track it back to the  _ Sweet William _ that precedes it. He huffs a laugh too soft to carry any sound beyond the gust of his exhale, and when his thumb completes its motion it’s to scroll back up through the list, the drag almost unthinking as he watches the words flicker past. The flower meanings rush past him, declarations of love or gratitude or friendship alike going unnoticed until he catches the motion to stillness, his body reacting before he’s consciously seen the words that seized his attention. It takes him a moment to identify what it is that pulled such an instinctive reaction from him; then he sees the meaning for  _ Tulips, striped _ as  _ beautiful eyes_, and he has to duck his head and cover his face with his hand as he snorts self-deprecation at himself.

He’s made his decision by the time he’s lifted his head from his hand to return to his scrolling through the list of flower meanings. It’s absurd, he knows in some part of his mind, but he’s too tired to consider his motivations too closely, and at the moment he can’t seem to feel anything but relief. He skips over most of the options, dismissing them as too romantic or too specific, but hidden amidst the dozens of  _ love _ and  _ devotion _ he finds a listing for  _ mirth_, and another one for  _ eloquence_. Shizuo scrolls back through the page one more time, repeating the names of the flowers to himself so he’ll remember them, before he opens up his phone record to redial the number he called the day before.

The phone is answered immediately, almost before Shizuo has even heard the ring on his end.  _ “Yagiri Flowers.” _

It’s a woman speaking, probably the same one from the day before, but Shizuo doesn’t remember her name and doesn’t try to recall it. “Hey,” he says, with far more confidence than he had the first time. “I want to get a bouquet delivered to Kamihana.”

There’s a groan from the other end of the line.  _ “You again,” _ the woman says.  _ “Fine. Let me get an order form.” _ There’s a rustle of paper.  _ “I don’t suppose you have any better idea of what you want this time around?” _

“Yeah, I do,” Shizuo says. “I want a bouquet of Sweet William, striped tulips, lotus flowers, and saffron crocus.”

The woman pauses.  _ “Wow,” _ she says, though she doesn’t sound particularly surprised or in fact particularly anything.  _ “Really trying to make up for the first one, aren’t you?” _

Shizuo’s jaw tightens. “Shut up.”

_ “Calm down,” _ the woman tells him bluntly.  _ “I don’t really care anyway.” _ There’s the sound of paper tearing.  _ “This one will cost a lot more than the last. Are you okay with that?” _

Shizuo shakes his head to dismiss the question. “That’s fine.”

_ “Alright. We’ll drop it off later today. Unless you want a specific time for this one?” _

“No,” Shizuo says. “Whenever, it doesn’t matter.” He gives the woman his payment information again; she wasn’t kidding, the price tag is drastically higher this time. But Shizuo has the money available, even if this isn’t what he was expecting to spend it on, and he only grimaces at the total for a moment before he remembers the way Izaya smiled at the first bouquet, the way he lifted his fingers to trail along the winding tendrils of ivy surrounding the sunburst white of the daisies. By the time he’s completed his order and moved to hang up the call his frown has evaporated, falling away from his lips until it’s hard to remember it was ever there at all.

It’s not until much later, as he’s putting his jacket on to leave work at the end of his shift, that he realizes that the weight of guilt in his chest has disintegrated as well.


	14. Acknowledge

“And  _ these _ are a compliment about my eyes,” Izaya says, bracing the vase between both his hands as he twists it against the counter to show Shizuo the splash of vivid color striping white tulip petals. “It seems I’ve made a  _ conquest_, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo stands on the far side of the counter, his shoulder tipped in to lean against the display case next to him and his arms crossed over his chest with the same care he is applying to keep his expression as nearly neutral as he can manage. It’s more of a challenge than he expected it would be, with Izaya cooing delight over exactly the bouquet that Shizuo himself ordered the day before; he doesn’t trust the tension in his throat to hold his words steady for more than the briefest of replies. “Yeah.”

Izaya looks at him sideways, his gaze cutting through the dark of his lashes to sharpen the curve of his smile to a razor’s edge. “You don’t seem that enthusiastic, Shizu-chan.” He gives over his hold on the vase so he can face forward instead, weighting both his elbows at the counter as he catches his chin in his palm and tips his head to the side to give Shizuo the full of his attention. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

Shizuo’s folded arms tighten so abruptly he’s glad he’s holding onto his own elbows rather than gripping anything more breakable. He suspects the involuntary tremor of his fingers would have crushed his phone to dust if he had it in hand. “What?” he manages to get out, pushing his hands under the cover of his arms so he can curl his fingers into the relief of fists. “Why would I be  _ jealous_?”

Izaya lifts his eyebrows and heaves a sigh. “Oh, Shizu-chan,” he says, and reaches out to press his hand to the tension straining along Shizuo’s upper arm. Shizuo is too tight with adrenaline to think to flinch away before Izaya’s fingers are against his sleeve. He’s wearing a jacket over his shirt, the layers more than enough to barricade his skin from Izaya’s; he can’t explain the heat that prickles into him, radiating out along his arm from the point where Izaya touches him. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?” Shizuo stares into Izaya’s eyes, wide open on sincerity; he’s still staring when the corner of Izaya’s mouth twists up to scatter sympathy into vicious amusement. “You can’t expect humans to send flowers to a  _ monster_.”

Shizuo scowls and wrenches his arm back from Izaya’s touch with far more force than is necessary to free himself from the glancing weight of Izaya’s fingers. Izaya just spills a laugh and lets his arm fall back to drape elegance across the counter in front of him as he leans harder into the support of his elbow.

“Fuck you,” Shizuo snaps at him. “ _You _ sent me flowers.  _ Twice_.”

Izaya blinks put-upon innocence up at him. “That was before I knew I had a secret admirer,” he says, and reaches to pull the second vase of flowers over to half-obscure his features. “I’m not about to be unfaithful now that they’ve made their feelings known!”

Shizuo scoffs a laugh in the back of his throat. “By sending you a couple bunches of flowers?”

“ _Complimentary _ flowers,” Izaya tells him, tipping sideways so he can give Shizuo the full edge of his smirk from around the bouquet spilling over the edges of the vase. “I realize you don’t have much experience with being admired, Shizu-chan, but it’s only polite to recognize someone else’s feelings when they take the trouble to express themselves to you.”

Shizuo’s mouth twitches at the corner. He tightens his fingers at his palm, pressing until the force heightens to a dull throb of hurt and he can fight back the expression trying to break free over his face. “You don’t even know who they’re from.”

Izaya shrugs. “It doesn’t matter,” he declares, turning to admire the bouquet again as he lifts a hand to trail along the cupped petals of the crocus blossoms. “It’s the feelings that matter most anyway. I can accept anyone and love them just as much as they love me.” He lifts his hand to fling it wide, turning into the gesture as he lifts his face up to beam towards the ceiling of the shop. “I’ll take the love of all of humanity at once, if they want to give it to me!”

Shizuo snorts. “Who’d want to give you anything?”

“I don’t expect  _ you _ to understand,” Izaya says. He lets his hand fall as smoothly as he raised it, turning back to brace his elbows against the counter and resume his forward lean towards Shizuo. “Playing at humanity will only get you so far in the end.”

Shizuo doesn’t look at the flowers spilling from the vase at Izaya’s side. His gaze doesn’t move from its fixed hold at Izaya’s eyes, where the brittle edge of the other’s usual teasing has cracked into the sparkle of almost childlike pleasure. “We’ll see.”

Izaya raises his eyebrows and sharpens his lopsided smile. “Is that a threat?” he purrs. “Ooo, Shizu-chan, I can’t  _ wait _ to see how you’ll surprise me this time.” His tone is lilting, sliding to offer cutting mockery, but Shizuo feels none of anger that used to bleed from him in reply to Izaya’s taunts. His greater understanding of the situation serves as more than enough armor to protect him from the teasing that seemed so unbearable a few days ago, and his own calm is enough to soften his mouth from the tension of the scowl that he has carried by necessity every time he passes through the door of Izaya’s shop.

He doesn’t realize how far his expression has eased until Izaya’s gaze drops from his eyes to his mouth and the other’s brilliant smiles dims to a flicker of confusion. Shizuo only sees it for a moment, in the crease between Izaya’s brows and the tension that flexes suddenly sharp at his mouth, but it is enough to startle him back to himself as Izaya straightens from the counter in a rush.

“Thinking about your girlfriend again, Shizu-chan?” Shizuo blinks at the startling force on the words, but Izaya doesn’t give him a chance to process their weight before he’s crackling into a laugh that sounds like it’s straining to pull free of his chest. “Or should I say your boss? You’re going to have to find somewhere else to indulge in your little workplace daydreams, I can’t have you scaring away all my customers.”

Shizuo’s shoulders tense, retreating from his slouching lean against the wall before he has made the decision to reclaim his advantage of height in answer to Izaya’s barbs. He breathes out a shocked exhale. “Are you back to that? How many times do I have to tell you I’m not in love with Celty?”

Izaya lifts a shoulder into a shrug without looking away from where he’s tugging at the flowers in his newest bouquet as if attempting to rearrange them. “That’s up to you,” he says. “How many times until I  _ believe _ you?” He lifts his eyes, casting his gaze sideways and through the dark of his lashes to find Shizuo’s stare. “Stop standing around my shop looking hopelessly infatuated and maybe I’ll reconsider my position.”

Shizuo’s skin prickles, his fingers tighten to dig his fingernails harder into his palm. “What,” he says, his voice too weighted with the necessity of denial for him to drag it into a true question. “I’m not in  _ love_.”

Izaya shrugs again and looks away. “Deny it all you want,” he says. “I’m just the messenger. You don’t have to listen to the facts.”

“They’re not  _ facts_,” Shizuo protests, but the words shimmer in his throat and spend their strength to tremble past his lips.

Izaya huffs himself into a laugh. “Yeah, you sound  _ very _ sure of that.” He lifts a hand to wave Shizuo aside without looking up. “Go sell yourself on your own excuses somewhere else, Shizu-chan. I’ve got more important things to deal with.”

The idle pull of Izaya’s touch against the loose petals of the bouquet in front of him makes the statement an insult, no matter how deliberately neutral his tone, but Shizuo doesn’t stay to argue. His thoughts are spinning, whirling too fast for him to follow as he stares at Izaya’s dark hair and elegant hands, and whatever else he’s uncertain of he’s positive he doesn’t want to be here while he’s processing this particular line of reasoning. He takes a step back, still staring at Izaya’s profile; and then Izaya lifts his head to look at him, and Shizuo turns to retreat from the recognition waiting in those brilliant eyes.


	15. Germination

The bouquet is waiting when Shizuo gets home from work.

He can see it from the street. There’s no box to hide the delivery from view this time; the spray of blossoms is clear as soon as he rounds the corner and glances at his apartment door. They’re set upright, spilling purple and orange over the lip of a narrow vase like they’re flinging themselves into competition with the sunset blazing glory across the sky. Shizuo’s steps stutter for a moment as he sees the vase standing unmistakably close to his own front door; but it is only a moment of hesitation. He pauses on the sidewalk, gazing at the flowers, and then his mouth curves onto a sudden, spreading smile, and when he moves forward once more it is with a rush of speed at his heels.

There’s no card on the flowers any more than there is the token professionalism of a box, but there is no question of the sender in Shizuo’s mind. He’s beaming by the time he reaches the vase and leans down to pick it up; it’s half-full of water, the flowers fitted so well within it that they hardly shift as he picks it up to check for a nonexistent note.

He doesn’t see his audience until there is a huff of an exhale loud enough to draw his attention to the man smiling sideways at him as he fishes a set of keys from his pocket. He meets Shizuo’s gaze with a friendly nod before dropping his gaze to the flowers again.

“Those are nice,” he says, and turns to fit his key into the lock of the next apartment along the hall. Shizuo’s seen him before, he thinks—he remembers the other’s warm smile and dark dreadlocks—but if they’ve ever been properly introduced he has forgotten the name too thoroughly to call it up now. It doesn’t seem to matter, as his neighbor is continuing to speak, shaking his head ruefully without waiting for Shizuo’s reply. “Wish my girlfriend saw a point in them, but she doesn’t even want me to send her bouquets, much less buy them for me.”

“Girlfriend,” Shizuo repeats, and scoffs a laugh weakened by the lack of breath in his lungs for it. “He’s not my girlfriend.”

“Ah,” the man says, and lifts a hand to gesture apology. “Boyfriend, then. Sorry, shouldn’t have assumed.” He meets Shizuo’s gaze with another friendly smile. “It’s great to be in that honeymoon phase, huh?” He turns back to push his unlocked door open, and he’s gone with no more than a wave of farewell before Shizuo can retrieve voice to protest this further incorrect assumption. Shizuo is left standing in the hallway, the vase of flowers heavy in his hands and his mouth open on a retort absent the strength of words to back it up. He looks down to the bouquet, his shocked attention pulled by the saturated color before him, and it’s as he’s staring at the checkered purple and spreading orange that he feels his face abruptly heat, color surging beneath his skin in delayed response to his neighbor’s friendly misunderstanding. Shizuo presses his lips tight together, feeling the burn across his cheeks darken until he’s as vividly colored as the flowers in his hands. It’s only with a conscious exertion of will that he’s able to wrench his gaze away from the tumble of color and to his front door, and it takes him two tries with two different keys before he manages to unlock the door and escape to the relative privacy offered by his apartment’s familiar walls.

The vase is narrow enough to hold one-handed as Shizuo pauses in the doorway to toe off his shoes, but he leaves his jacket on as he continues down the hallway to set the curving glass at the side of his kitchen counter, opposite the first bouquet still flourishing in its repurposed saucepan. Shizuo twists the vase, tipping his head as he picks out the different flowers: dark, checkered purple, wide-spreading orange of what look like lilies, white bell-shaped blossoms with deep scarlet speckling their pale throats. They look beautiful together, the colors glowing all the more brilliantly for the contrast they make, and it’s only when Shizuo’s phone buzzes in his pocket that he realizes that he’s smiling at the vase still held between his palms.

He isn’t surprised by the name on the display, even if it is the first time he’s received an actual call instead of the patter of incessant text messages at any and all hours of the day and night. Shizuo huffs a breath of something dangerously close to amusement before he answers the call and lifts his phone to his ear. “What do you want, Izaya?”

_ “Shizu-chan,” _ Izaya croons, drawling over the dedicated nickname like it’s an avowal of devotion.  _ “Have you made it safely home yet? You know how I worry about you walking around this late at night.” _

“Shut up,” Shizuo tells him without mustering particular force for the words. “I thought you said you weren’t going to send me flowers any more.”

_ “I took pity on you,” _ Izaya says immediately.  _ “You looked so bereft when you came to the shop the other day that I just couldn’t leave you disappointed. I’m too softhearted for my own good.” _ Shizuo snorts wordless amusement at the absurdity of this claim and is answered by the soft exhale of laughter at the other end before Izaya continues.  _ “Besides, I don’t even know who my admirer is. Who knows what they expect from me?” _

Shizuo clears his throat. “They didn’t leave a card?”

_ “Nothing,” _ Izaya declares.  _ “Not that I mind. I can accept their anonymous love as well, if they prefer!” _ There’s a pause.  _ “They sent me another bouquet today, you know.” _

Shizuo grimaces at his oversight in not asking. When he speaks his voice is roughened with awareness of his own misstep into something that sounds far closer to anger than he feels. “Oh yeah?”

_ “That’s right,” _ Izaya tells him.  _ “Don’t be sulky, Shizu-chan, I  _ just _ dropped off flowers for you too. My generosity knows no bounds.” _

“I bet.” Shizuo pauses. “What was in the bouquet?”

_ “Orange roses, purple pansies, and circaea,” _ Izaya says at once.  _ “It’s a striking combination. I tried to emulate the colors for your bouquet, though of course I changed the flowers. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of my feelings, after all.” _

Shizuo smiles at the bouquet in front of him and pushes against the bottom edge of the vase. “Of course.”

There’s a pause.  _ “Aren’t you going to ask me what they mean?” _

“What do they mean?”

_ “Yours or mine?” _ Shizuo growls by way of answer and is met with a burble of laughter from the other side of the line.  _ “My admirer is telling me that I occupy their thoughts, that I’m fascinating, that they are passionate for me.” _ He heaves a sigh. Shizuo can almost picture him leaning in over the front counter of the flower shop and resting his chin in his hand.  _ “_Yours _ are signs of hatred and persecution.” _

Shizuo looks back to his bouquet and brushes his fingers against the points of the vivid petals.“Which ones?”

_ “The orange daylilies are hatred,” _ Izaya explains.  _ “The checkered fritillaries are the persecution.” _

“Okay,” Shizuo says. He touches his thumb to the opening of one of the white flowers, where there is a smudge of shadow like blood spilled just within the curving throat. “What about the white?”

_ “The foxglove?” _ Izaya asks.  _ “Foxglove means insincerity.” _ There is a hum of recognition in Shizuo’s mind, a flicker of familiarity as if he’s hearing an echo of some previous conversation, though he’s sure he’s never had this particular discussion with Izaya before, but he doesn’t have time to pin it down before Izaya takes a breath and heaves it out into a dramatic exhale.  _ “That’s all the time I have to translate for you tonight, Shizu-chan. I have work to do, you know.” _

Shizuo raises his eyebrows. “You’re the one who called  _ me_, Izaya.”

_ “Only to make sure you received my gift,” _ Izaya says without so much as a beat of hesitation.  _ “Since I knew you’d lack the social graces to thank me for it otherwise.” _

Shizuo’s mouth tightens at the corner. “Thank you.”

The line goes silent for a moment, the sudden absence of sound more remarkable than any of the easy mockery Izaya usually offers. It’s only for a heartbeat; then:  _ “You’re welcome,” _ Izaya says, so smoothly Shizuo wonders if he imagined the hesitation entirely.  _ “What can I say, I can’t resist charity cases.” _

Shizuo huffs into the phone. “Goodbye, Izaya.”

_ “‘Night, Shizu-chan.” _

Shizuo hangs up without waiting to hear the  _ “Sweet dreams!” _ that follows Izaya’s farewell. He stands in his kitchen for a moment, looking at Izaya’s name still blinking over the call record until his phone screen goes dark in his hand. Then he looks back to the flowers, the purple and orange and white tumbling over the lip of the vase at his otherwise empty counter. He lifts his hand to brush his fingers against the ruffled edge of one of the foxglove flowers, his forehead tightening as he frowns at the blossom; but the moment of recognition has slipped away, and he can’t call it back in the silence of his apartment. Finally he grimaces, and shakes his head to clear it of his futile efforts, and returns down the hall to leave the flowers blooming in the kitchen behind him.


	16. Florescence

Shizuo can’t sleep.

He’s tired enough for it. He can feel exhaustion aching dully through the whole of his body, pulsing like a slower, darker heartbeat at the tension of his shoulders and creaking protest his knees make with every step. But what his body wants with increasing intensity as the hours pass his mind refuses to give way to, even to allow him the relief of so much as sitting still rather than pacing up and down the hallway that forms the longest clear path he has in his house. His thoughts are tumbling one over the other, chasing each other around his brain with a speed too much for him to have any hope of catching to coherency, and at the end of each set of fretful strides his gaze snags at the color spilling across his counter, flowers pouring themselves over their containers to demand his attention with an intensity that easily overrides his body’s more muted request for rest.

He can’t stop thinking about Izaya. It’s an ache, a rhythm of tension that follows the rhythm of his pulse thudding too-fast in his chest; but it refuses to blossom into the anger that marked their first encounters, denies him the simple comfort of the word  _ hatred _ to encompass the strange combination of adrenaline and heat that has kept him so wakeful for so long into the night. He thinks about the chain of messages on his phone, dozens of teasing greetings and rhetorical questions that have persisted in spite of his dedicated denial of any reply; he thinks about the lilt of Izaya’s voice over the phone swinging straightforward conversation into the intricacy of a duet. There is the sharp-toothed flash of his smile, glinting like a blade in the open sunlight, and the dark focus of eyes that sparkle with some greater weight, alight with a dare towards comprehension that Shizuo cannot lay claim to. He has no words for any of it, for the pressure in his chest or the clarity of Izaya’s face in his memory or the echo of laughter that haunts him with every glance towards the bouquets set at his counter; but he feels it all the same, knotting against the inside of his chest until he feels the strain of bearing the weight, until every step feels like it ought to land with thunderous force at the drop of his heel.

He has to do something. He will never be able to sleep like this, will pace his floor rough and his mind to an exhaustion that can never fulfill his work responsibilities; but he cannot free himself from the tangle of his thoughts. The only freedom he will find is through the web binding him, in tearing himself free of the restraints of denial that trap him; and his footsteps slow, his stride faltering as his fleeing thoughts seize upon the support of that decision. His pace eases, the length of his steps diminishing as he draws to the end of his hallway, and then he stands still, his body tingling with relief at his inaction while his gaze lands on the bouquets he has set at either end of his kitchen counter.

Shizuo doesn’t track the pattern of his thoughts. They are drifting free, the tether of consciousness loosened by the lateness of the hour until they feel almost as if he’s listening to someone else, like it’s the advice of some objective observer washing over him as he stands in the middle of his night-silent apartment and looks at the flowers sent to him by Orihara Izaya. His heart catches hard in his chest, his throat tightening as if he is struggling to breathe; his face is warm, his skin glowing like he’s radiating heat from some internal source. Shizuo stands, and stares, and waits; and then recognition appears in his head, materializing fully-formed from the haze of possibilities he has been chasing down the hall of his apartment for the last span of hours.

It’s an absurd possibility. Shizuo feels the foolishness of it on contact, as the logic of his thoughts flinches back from the clear insanity of his conclusion: but he feels it loosen the knot within his chest, untangling the twist and throb of stress that has held him to consciousness so far beyond his own choice. It  _ cannot _ be true, it makes no sense, it has not even a passing resemblance to coherency; but Shizuo can feel his breathing ease, can feel his chest relax as if he’s suddenly been granted access to air again. He can’t explain himself, can no more put words to the path of his reasoning than he could see the shape of his rambling thoughts; but he knows he is right, knows it the same way he knows the feeling of hunger and the pleasure of sunshine on bare skin. It’s innate, something built into the marrow of his bones and the pulse of his blood, and as Shizuo gazes at the flowers he feels his heartbeat steadying as it falls into the pace it has been struggling towards for longer than he knew.

He has his phone out of his pocket before he realizes he has reached for it. The weight is familiar at his palm, the notification bar for unread messages now such a regular sight that he would normally glance right past it. It’s the name that catches his gaze,  _ Izaya-kun _ in bold above the teasing insincerity of the message text, and for a moment Shizuo pauses, his thumb over his screen as he considers opening the message, considers replying directly to the question in his mind rather than whatever inanity Izaya’s current line of teasing has followed. He hesitates, staring at his screen as his thoughts speed with the effort of decision; and then his gaze flickers back to the bouquets, and his choice is made with the speed of flashing inspiration.

It’s only as he’s listening to the phone ring that he thinks to wonder how late it is, that the possibility of waking the person at the other end even occurs to him. Shizuo glances around his apartment, trying to locate a clock so he can put a number to the hour, but he’s hardly turned his head before there is a  _ click _ at his ear and immediately a voice as brightly cheerful as it sounds in the middle of the day.

_ “Hi Shizuo! Do you know what time it is?” _

Shizuo grimaces. “No,” he says, the word going gruff with the sudden spike of guilt that hits him. “Sorry, Shinra.”

_ “Don’t worry about it!” _ Shizuo can almost see the careless wave of Shinra’s hand brushing his attempt at apology aside before it is fully heard.  _ “You’ve given me a chance to drift into sleep in Celty’s arms twice in one night. I should be thanking you if anything!” _

“Did I wake Celty?”

_ “Hmm.” _ There’s the sound of a door opening, a pause, the creak of it shutting.  _ “I don’t think so! She’s sleeping like an angel. Which of course she is. I’m sure she would forgive you if you did, but of course I would be another matter entirely!” _

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. “Listen, Shinra. I need you to do me a favor.”

_ “As long as it doesn’t upset my darling, I’m happy to help!” _

Shizuo shakes his head. “It’s got nothing to do with Celty. I need you to place an order for a bouquet of flowers. From...from Izaya.”

_ “Okay!” _ Shinra chirps.  _ “Why don’t you just order them yourself?” _

Shizuo grimaces and ducks his head to scrub a hand roughly through his hair. “I don’t want him to know I’m the one who wants them.”

_ “Ahh,” _ Shinra says, like this is the most natural thing in the world.  _ “I see!” _

Shizuo isn’t completely sure that he does, but if anything he’s more concerned that Shinra  _ does _ have some insight than that he doesn’t. He refrains from pressing the issue and shakes his head to recenter his thoughts. “Can you request a specific kind of flowers?”

_ “Sure!” _ Shinra says.  _ “What do you want?” _

“Uh,” Shizuo says. “Hang on.” He pulls his phone away from his ear so he can minimize the phone call and access the window for his web browser, which is still open to the language of flowers site he hasn’t closed in the last week. He remembers some of what he’s looking for; his brief scroll is more to confirm his choices than anything else before he brings his phone back to his ear. “You ready?”

_ “Yep!” _

“Fern for sincerity,” Shizuo says. “Pink rosebuds. And…” His face heats, his cheeks flushing into color so for a moment all he can do is press his lips tight together and wait for the surge of tension in his throat to ease enough for him to force out the last of the words. “Purple lilac.”

Shizuo doesn’t offer the explanation for the last two, but Shinra makes a sound so expressive of understanding that Shizuo’s throat tightens with embarrassment that wouldn’t let him say  _ first feelings of love _ even if he had any intention of doing so.  _ “I see!” _ Shizuo lifts his hand to cover his face, as if there is anyone to see the blush burning radiant across the full span of his cheeks, but Shinra manifests some measure of discretion or, more likely, simply doesn’t think it worth pressing the subject.  _ “Okay, I’ll pass the order along!” _

Shizuo swallows. “Thanks.” His voice is still rough but the word is clear enough to be heard, at least. After a moment he manages to drop his hand from his face. “Can you also.”

_ “Yes?” _

Shizuo clears his throat. “Make sure he knows the order is from someone other than you.”

_ “Like a secret admirer?” _

Shizuo breathes a shaky laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Just like that.”

_ “Can do! Anything else you need?” _

“No. That’s it.” Shizuo pushes his hand through his hair again, although it’s already rumpled by his earlier distraction. “Thanks, Shinra.”

_ “Anytime!” _ Shinra replies.  _ “Well. Anytime so long as you don’t wake Celty up. You understand.” _

“I got it. Sorry about calling so late.”

_ “Oh no, it’s fine! I’m happy to play cupid. Or help with a prank. Whichever this is!” _

Shizuo laughs weakly. “Yeah,” he says. “Thanks again.”

_ “Yep!” _ Shizuo starts to pull his phone away from his face before there is a catch of breath and Shinra’s voice jumping suddenly loud.  _ “Oh, wait, Shizuo!” _

“Yeah?”

_ “Do you want the flowers delivered or picked up?” _

Shizuo takes a deep breath. “For pickup,” he says. “I’ll go get them tomorrow.”

_ “Okay!” _ Shinra declares.  _ “I’ll let Izaya know before I go back to bed. Goodnight!” _ The line goes dead before Shizuo has a chance to suggest that Shinra wait to place the order until a more reasonable hour. He looks at the screen of his phone for a moment, wondering if he should text Shinra about it; and then he sees the unread notifications for the messages that arrive for him every few hours, whether night or day, and he dismisses his concern as unnecessary. He locks his phone and returns it to his pocket before his gaze flickers up to the bouquets on his counter once more. He stands still for a minute, attention wandering across bright lilies and heavy-clustered hydrangea; then he ducks his head to hide the curve of his irrepressible smile, and he turns to make his way to his bedroom and what sleep he can still find for himself tonight.


	17. Revelation

It’s after noon when Shizuo leaves his apartment.

He woke to his alarm, stirred to bleary consciousness by the insistent beep of his phone at the side of his bed. He managed enough clarity to send a text to Celty asking to take the day off, and waited to receive the  _ ping _ of her immediate reply before tossing himself back onto the mattress in surrender to the exhaustion still leaden in his body. But sleep eludes him once he has risen from dreams, hovering out of reach as he lies staring vague inattention at the ceiling of his bedroom, and after some unmeasured span of time Shizuo turns over to topple himself out of bed and give way to the necessities of a consciousness that refuses to allow him the retreat to further rest.

He takes as long as he can. His shower runs until the water fades from steam to cool against his skin while he’s still standing beneath the spray, and when he emerges his bathroom mirror is fogged past any hope of glimpsing his own reflection. He attempts to wipe it clean, watches condensation return to the glass in a sweep of silver, and gives up the effort, turning away to leave the door open to the rest of his apartment while he goes to the kitchen to claim something like breakfast with his hair still damp enough to drip wet into the white of his undershirt. It’s dry by the time he’s rinsing his plate in the sink, tousled into casual disarray over the time to which he dragged the simple process of preparing and eating a meal, and Shizuo returns to the now-cleared mirror to brush out any major knots before he finishes dressing. He takes long minutes standing in front of his closet, staring blankly at his selection of shirts as if he is struggling to make a decision, before blinking back from the wander of his thoughts and pulling one at random to shrug over his shoulders and button up over dark slacks.

He’s not thinking about his clothes any more than he was thinking about the intricacies of his morning shower or the details of the breakfast he ate without tasting. His thoughts are pinned to the same point on which they have been fixed since last night, tracing a spiral that narrows with every passing heartbeat, and however long Shizuo delays over his morning routine he can feel the inevitable conclusion drawing nearer with every action. It must be soon, must be today, it comes closer to  _ now _ with every breath he draws; and then his shirt is buttoned, and his apartment is quiet, and there is nothing left to delay his departure.

Shizuo doesn’t think. Leaving his apartment is a simple routine, one he knows too well to require any thought to execute: stepping into his shoes, pulling on his coat, stuffing his keys into his pocket, all happen while his thoughts are drifting ahead of his actions, tracing their way down the sidewalk and towards the crossroads that will turn him towards his final destination. Shizuo locks his apartment behind him, feeling the  _ thud _ of the deadbolt turning over with a strange awareness of the finality of it, before he turns his back on his door and moves to follow the echo that imagination has left for the pattern of his steps. Out of his apartment complex, down the sidewalk, marking out the same path he has walked dozens of times without thought; and all the while his head is lifted, his eyes fixed on a point that draws nearer with every scuff of his shoes against the sidewalk.

The shop is open. Shizuo hadn’t checked the business hours but he’s grown accustomed to seeing the lights glowing through the expansive glass windows on his walk in to work, has carried the awareness of Izaya’s presence in the hunch of his shoulders and the scowl at his mouth as he paces past the flower shop and feels the attention from inside lingering against the back of his neck like a touch. It’s strange to be looking for it, to be anticipating his arrival instead of dreading it; but the feeling is familiar, Shizuo finds, his heart skipping faster in his chest as he closes the distance to the front door. His hands feel shaky, his fingers trembling with too-much strength instead of a lack of it, until he has to be careful in closing his hold on the door handle to keep from crushing the metal out-of-shape in his grip.

The smell of flowers hits him as soon as the door comes open. That’s familiar too, Shizuo realizes, the humid wet of leaves and the lush perfume of roses and the strange, chemical undertone of the preservatives that tint the water for the cut flowers to pale green. It’s the smell of the bouquets in his kitchen, the flowers that have poured into his life since he first came through this same door and found a razor smile waiting to cut into him; the recognition makes his stomach drop, as if gravity has fallen away from beneath his feet while he is stepping through the door. Shizuo blinks, and takes a deeper breath than he intended, and lets the door handle go so it can swing shut behind him as he continues into the shop.

Izaya isn’t waiting for him. The counter is absent his dark stare, his mocking smirk; Shizuo has to look to the back to find him, and even then Izaya’s back is turned, his dark shirt and darker hair all Shizuo can see of him. He’s leaning forward over the counter in front of him, clearly occupied with what he’s doing; as Shizuo comes up to the counter Izaya tips his head to call back towards the front, “I’ll be right with you,” in a brightly polite and utterly insincere tone.

Shizuo coughs in a futile attempt to clear the pressure in his chest. “No rush.”

Izaya moves instantly as soon as Shizuo makes a sound, twisting so rapidly his gaze is fixing on Shizuo’s face before the other has even framed the words on his lips. His eyes narrow as he sees Shizuo, his attention skipping rapidly across his face, over his shirt, down the dark of his slacks, before he flickers the familiar blade of his smile over his shoulder to join to the dark-lashed threat of his gaze.

“Sorry, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and turns to look back to what he’s doing as his shoulders loosen from the brief tension that came with the assumption of a customer. “I don’t have time to amuse you right now. I’ve got an order for a customer I don’t want to disappoint.”

Shizuo’s throat is tight. His fingers are curling to fists at his sides and he doesn’t know how to loosen them any more than he knows how to ease the strain against his chest, the pressure rising like he’s suffocating, like he’s fighting against his own strength for the right to claim a breath of air for himself. He can feel his heart pounding against his ribcage so hard he feels like the sound ought to be echoing through the whole of the shop.

“Yeah,” he forces out. His voice is strange, raw and ragged as he pushes the words free of the clutch of his throat, and it’s too loud, as if he’s shouting to be heard from across a city block instead of inside the enclosed space of a nearly-empty flower shop. “I know.”

The world goes still. Shizuo can feel his words hanging in the air, so solid he imagines he could reach out and press his fingers to the shape of his voice still humming before him, if he could only recall how to move his arm in the absolute silence that has seized hold of the universe. Izaya’s back is still turned to Shizuo, his dark shirt clinging to his shoulders and draping the curve of his waist, but his motion has ceased, his action stalled with one hand still holding a rose over the support of the counter in front of him. Shizuo can’t see his face, can’t track the flicker of realization breaking into epiphany and retroactive understanding; it all happens in isolation, while he is left to stare at the line of Izaya’s tense shoulders. There is a long span of silence, so absolute it seems to echo back in time to stifle Shizuo’s words, until he begins to doubt he spoke at all, begins to wonder if the knowledge he intended to voice didn’t simply leap unattended like lightning from his mind to Izaya’s. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move; all he can do is stand still and wait for what response may come.

The answer comes at Izaya’s hand before his lips. Shizuo can see his shirt shift, the weight of the fabric readjusting to the fractional motion of Izaya’s body before his hand falls to his side, his fingers still closed around the stem of the rosebud he was holding. His grip is loose; it’s only the angle of a leaf caught against his little finger that stops the flower from tumbling to the floor entirely. Shizuo stares at the rose, at the curl of dawn-soft petals hanging like an impossible weight from Izaya’s slack fingers, and he looks back up to Izaya’s dark hair as fingers of foreboding clench to a fist around his heart.

“It was you.” There is no question in Izaya’s mouth, no taunt clinging sticky-sweet to his tongue. The words fall to the floor with the weight of lead, split and broken from any emotion they may have once carried with them. Shizuo hadn’t noticed, before, how much warmth there has always been in Izaya’s voice, how much heat has glowed beneath the curve of his smile and the tilt of his lashes.

Shizuo works his throat on a swallow. The motion feels cataclysmic. “Yeah.” He ducks his head, unable to keep his gaze fixed on the wall of Izaya’s turned-away shoulders. “Yes.”

There is no answer. The shop is silent, wrapped in an absence that has gained its own form to suffocate the possibility of speech, to snuff out even the hope of breathing. Shizuo’s lungs are fighting for air, straining to fill his chest with oxygen that seems to have burnt itself away in that flash of shocked comprehension; he shuts his eyes, sets his jaw to focus himself on the drag of breathing. “Izaya,” he starts, lifting his head as he forces words to tear at the silence around him; and then his gaze comes up, and he sees Izaya’s face.

Izaya has turned, twisted back to look at Shizuo at some point while Shizuo’s head was lowered, while he was fighting free the breath to speak from the open air around him. He is staring straight at Shizuo, his eyes wide and fixed on the other’s face, but even looking right at Izaya Shizuo can barely recognize him. His smile is stripped away, torn free to leave his mouth soft on undisguised hurt; his eyes are bright but it’s tears instead of laughter caught against his lashes when he blinks. He looks devastated, as if the sound of Shizuo’s voice were a blow crushing his bones to dust, as if this is the last moment of lingering strength before his legs give way to drop him to boneless surrender. Shizuo flinches, his body drawing him back by a step before he can stop his impulse to retreat, and Izaya’s face crumples, his brows drawing together as the soft of his mouth tightens to trembling pain.

“Get out,” he says.

Shizuo catches a sharp breath. “Izaya—”

“Get out,” Izaya says again. There’s no force to the words, no strength behind the command. It’s just a statement, the emotion leeched from his voice to pool at his lashes and quiver at his mouth. Shizuo hesitates, caught between the need to comfort and the desire to obey; and then Izaya’s hand shifts, and the rose leaf caught at his pinky slips free. The flower drops to the floor, the whisper-soft of the petals bruising with the impact ringing loud as a shout in the silence of the room, and Shizuo’s gaze is dragged down by the motion. He stares at the rosebud for a moment, his heart pounding and breath stuck somewhere in the height of his throat; and then he blinks, and turns, jerking into the action that is easier to take than to force himself to look back at the betrayal on Izaya’s face.


	18. Coordinate

Shizuo doesn’t know where he goes. His first thought is to leave the flower shop, to gain what relief distance can offer to the collapse of his intended confession; but his feet bear him forward as he steps through the front door, urging him to motion that is as much a comfort in itself as the idea of a destination he cannot define. Shizuo turns away from the shop, striding down the sidewalk with a haste born from his need to remove himself, to follow the only response Izaya gave to his evidently unwanted revelation, and he keeps moving, walking without seeing anything of the people or places around him while his thoughts churn on themselves with violent force.

He hadn’t intended his confession to land as it did. He had thought it could be welcome, had considered Izaya’s amusement as a certainty and his happiness as a possibility. The truth that Izaya would look at him as if he had been struck through the heart, as though Shizuo’s admission were tantamount to a death sentence, was so far from Shizuo’s mind that he cannot fit the progression of the conversation into a logical order. He scrambles through his memory, wondering if he spoke different words than he intended, if he somehow offered something completely different than the simple admission he had planned, and the pace of his footsteps falls with a heartbeat rhythm to tear away at his own certainty. He can’t recall his words, can’t be certain he spoke at all, with the weight of that awful, echoing silence weighting so heavy on his recollection; his memory erodes with every step he takes, eaten away by his own revisiting until all that remains is that look he saw on Izaya’s face, the open hurt and aching pain that Shizuo had never expected to see in those eyes, on that mouth. It strikes through him, pinning through an emotion he has only barely begun to recognize for what it is, until the thud of his footsteps carries the clean, cold certainty of regret for whatever he did or said to bring that expression to Izaya’s face.

He doesn’t pay attention to the time. His phone is in his pocket but it doesn’t buzz with the messages that have become an all but hourly occurrence; in their absence Shizuo feels as if time itself has disintegrated along with his own clarity of thought, as if the very structure of the world he took for granted is coming apart in his hands. It’s a surprise to realize the light is dimming, the clear bright of midday faded to sunset sepia; stranger still to pause the forward rhythm of his feet and lift his head to find the sky illuminated in scarlet red and heavy gold. Shizuo stands still in the middle of the sidewalk, head turned up to stare uncomprehending at the proof of the failing day; and it is there, standing in the middle of the city block, that he hears the faint chime of his phone ringing.

He pulls it free, his heart pounding a steady rhythm as he slides it from his pocket and looks at the screen. There is only a number displayed, without any associated name; Shizuo stares for a long moment, his thoughts empty while his pulse answers for him, starting towards a patter of anticipation he feels without explaining. He lets his phone ring in his hand once more, listening to the chime rise and fall to silence, before he presses his thumb to the screen and lifts the phone to his ear.

There is no greeting and no hesitation for his. There is just the speaker at his ear, a sharp voice gone soft and gentle with uncertainty.  _ “I have a delivery for you.” _ Shizuo loses his breath, the air fleeing from his lungs, and the speaker continues as if he had answered aloud.  _ “Come back towards the shop.” _

Shizuo turns immediately. His mind is scrambling for traction, frantically seeking out the abandoned recollection of the path that brought him here, of how to reverse his rambling steps to find his way back to the flower shop; but as he turns his gaze threads through the crowd, skipping past strangers and passersby along the block behind him to seize hold of a single figure standing in the shadow of an office building.

Shizuo doesn’t think about moving. His feet do the work for him, undoing the steps of his path here to return him to Izaya. He doesn’t even think to lower his phone until he sees Izaya hang up, and it’s only in the  _ click _ of the call ending that he returns it to his own pocket as he continues to stride forward. Izaya doesn’t move to meet him: he remains exactly where he is, standing at the corner of the building with his hands heavy at his sides and his gaze fixed on Shizuo as the other approaches. His apron is gone, the vivid red of the fabric left behind in the shop; his dark clothes blend him into the increasing shadow around him, as if he’s trying to vanish where he stands, as if Shizuo can see anything else but the set of his mouth and the focus of the eyes watching him approach.

Shizuo doesn’t slow until he’s across the last street between them. By the time he can bring his feet to a halt the distance is gone, with no more remaining than bare inches between the toes of their shoes. Izaya has to tilt his head up to meet Shizuo’s gaze; Shizuo looks down into his eyes, his heart racing and his thoughts voiceless. He could stand there forever, just staring at Izaya in dumbstruck silence; but then Izaya takes a breath, and lifts his hand from his side.

“These are for you,” he says. When Shizuo looks down Izaya’s fingers are wrapped around a tiny cluster of flowers, pink and white and blue gathered together into a bouquet formed of no more than a handful of blossoms.

Shizuo’s throat goes tight, stifling any answer he might have wished to give. It is a long moment before he can lift his hand from his side, and when he does it is to close his hand around Izaya’s, to steady the other’s hold on the flowers instead of taking them from him. He can feel Izaya’s fingers tremble beneath his, quaking beneath the weight of his touch, but when Izaya draws breath to speak his voice is clear as glass.

“Camellia,” he says. “My destiny is in your hands.” Shizuo can see his throat work against the loose neckline of his shirt. When he glances up Izaya isn’t looking at him; his eyes are pinned to the flowers clasped between them, his attention fully held between their overlapping fingers. “Star of Bethlehem means reconciliation.” His grip tightens. He takes a deliberate breath. “And blue violets mean—”

“Love,” Shizuo says. Izaya’s words stall, his mouth still open on unvoiced speech before he presses his lips together beneath the flush of red that blooms across his cheeks. He doesn’t look up to meet Shizuo’s gaze; Shizuo doesn’t look away from him.

They stand still there for a moment, caught in a frame around the splash of color held between them. Then Shizuo tightens his hold around Izaya’s hand in his, and when he pushes Izaya falls back by a step, retreating until his heels find the wall behind him and his shoulders press to the resistance of the building at his back. He breathes out an exhale like he’s setting it free, like it’s words of surrender, and Shizuo reaches up with his free hand to slide his fingers into the silky dark of Izaya’s hair. Izaya’s lashes flutter, his gaze falling in answer to Shizuo’s touch, and as Shizuo’s palm fits against Izaya’s hair Izaya’s head tilts back into the support of it. Izaya’s mouth goes soft, his lips easing onto the threat of a smile, or the possibility of speech; and Shizuo ducks forward to catch both beneath the steadying force of his mouth fitting against Izaya’s.

Shizuo steps in closer after a moment, shifting to follow Izaya into the shadows of the building where he has him pinned; Izaya’s other hand comes up from his side, his thumb slipping into the belt loop at Shizuo’s pants as his fingers grip the other’s hip to urge him closer. But the flowers stay between them, fixed in the clasp of their hands one atop the other.


	19. Complementary

They go back to Izaya’s apartment. It’s closer, as Izaya points out when Shizuo comes back to himself enough to balk at their relatively public position just off the main street, and with the heat of Izaya’s mouth coursing fire through him Shizuo doesn’t have the presence of mind to hesitate for any particular length of time at intruding on Izaya’s home. Izaya already knows where Shizuo lives, anyway, and without Shizuo inviting him there; sharing similar information seems like levelling the playing field more than anything else. Shizuo thinks about it for the few blocks he has to follow Izaya through the streets, his thoughts blurred out of coherence by the anticipation thrumming through his body; and then Izaya glances back over his shoulder as he turns into the doorway of a downtown apartment complex, his lashes heavy over his gaze, and Shizuo is recalled forcibly of the fact that the antagonism in their relationship has given way to something with far more unexplored potential.

The elevator requires a key to carry them to the topmost floor Izaya specifies. Shizuo wonders at it for exactly as long as it takes Izaya to turn the key and the elevator doors to glide obediently shut in front of them; and then Izaya is turning back to him, and Shizuo’s hands are reaching out of their own accord, and all his attention to their surroundings is utterly abandoned in favor of far better application to the fit of his hands at Izaya’s waist and the arch of Izaya’s back as he winds his grip to fists in Shizuo’s hair. Shizuo pins Izaya against the wooden railing lining the walls around him, Izaya hooks a leg around Shizuo’s hip, and by the time the elevator beeps and the doors begin to pull open once more Shizuo has lost the thread of his surroundings all over again and has to blink hard and shake his head to bring himself back to reality.

The elevator opens directly into a room that speaks its value in the abundance of airy space it offers. There is a desk at the farthest side, and a wide, dark couch set at an indentation in the floor; other than shelves of books that entirely line one side of the double-height room, there is no other furniture of note. The wall facing the elevator doors is entirely made of glass, windows running from the floor straight up to the distant ceiling; the sunset spills through them to flood the room with golden light.

“Holy shit,” Shizuo blurts, still standing in the elevator. “You  _ live _ here?”

“Of course not,” Izaya says, so easily that the shock is enough to pull Shizuo’s attention away from the impossible apartment and back to the man he had been pinning to the side of the elevator. Izaya is watching Shizuo instead of the apartment, his lashes heavy over his eyes; his mouth pulls to a smirk as Shizuo looks back to his face. “I murdered my last customer for the day and stuffed their body in my back room before stealing their house keys. We really lucked out, huh?”

Shizuo narrows his eyes. “You’re joking.”

Izaya laughs. “Yes, I’m joking.” He turns to sweep his arm towards the expanse of the open apartment around them. “And yes, I live here. That would in fact be why I brought you here, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he says, and steps out of the elevator to follow Izaya into the apartment. It  _ is _ Izaya’s home—it must be, he realizes as soon as he thinks through the logic of it—but he’s never been inside a space this obviously expensive, and even with Izaya leading the way with a comfortable saunter Shizuo can’t fight back the sense that he’s intruding somewhere he was never intended to be. The elevator doors slide shut behind him with a soft  _ whir_, and Shizuo is left with a sense of overwhelming isolation even with proof of Izaya’s presence clearly audible from around the corner where the other has disappeared.

There is almost nothing to look at. Other than the shelves of books there are hardly any decorations: a paperweight at the edge of the desk, an ashtray with the smudged remains of what look like charred playing cards in front of the couch, and nothing else to disrupt the clear line of sight out the immense windows forming the far wall of the room. Shizuo paces towards them, his attention held by the vertiginous sense of open air looming before him, but when he approaches the glass he finds himself so high above the streets below that any sense of reality is stripped away by the enforced scale, as if he’s gazing down at a city made into a model by the sharp escalation of an airplane. He stands at the edge of the glass, the sunset gold at his face and the streets spread out to a tangle of shadowed motion beneath him, until Izaya’s voice from behind him pulls his attention back.

“Here.” Shizuo turns away from the city to see Izaya coming around the edge of a kitchen island so utterly immaculate Shizuo doubts it has ever been used. He’s holding a cup half-full of water, which he offers to Shizuo as he comes up next to him. Shizuo reaches to take it, frowning confusion that must be obvious, judging from the way Izaya huffs a laugh and ducks his head to nod at Shizuo’s shirtfront. “For the flowers.”

Shizuo has to look down to recall the tiny bouquet Izaya pressed into his hand when they met on the street. It’s been tucked into the pocket of his shirt, although he doesn’t recall thinking of it whatsoever after the point his mouth settled against Izaya’s; Izaya must have slipped it there to free his hands at some point in their progress from street to apartment complex to elevator. Shizuo pulls the flowers free, his mouth tightening on a smile before he realizes it, and Izaya flickers a grin at him and lifts a hand to pat Shizuo’s cheek.

“Take your time,” he says, and slips sideways with an ease that tightens Shizuo’s chest on illogical panic. He would grab for Izaya’s arm, or waist, or shoulder, just to slow the graceful retreat the other is making, but his hands are full and he doesn’t want to drop the glass in one hand or the flowers in the other. Izaya grins like he’s reading Shizuo’s mind, his fingers sliding along the collar of the other’s shirt to trace the line of his throat before they slip away and he turns to move back. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Shizuo turns to look after him. “Where?”

Izaya glances back over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow. “Where do you  _ think_, Shizu-chan?” Shizuo’s pulse skips hot and Izaya’s teasing smile breaks into an overt laugh. “I’ll be ready whenever you are.” And he twists away, moving across the living room and to the open stairs winding their way up to the balcony of the second floor. Shizuo stands where he is for a moment, staring after Izaya while his thoughts follow the wordless clarity of instinct and anticipation; then water spills over his hand, and he blinks and returns to the moment to keep himself from pouring the cup out all across Izaya’s floor.

He just means to drop the bouquet into the cup and leave them on the nearest flat surface before following Izaya as rapidly as he can; but the flowers fall lopsided when he stuffs them into the glass, and the memory of their meaning slows him from the first urgency of haste. Shizuo frowns and pulls at the pair of violets, struggling to return them to the elegance they had when Izaya first offered them to him. Finally he gets the flowers arranged properly, or at least close enough to pass as such to his inexperienced eye, and it’s as he turns to set the cup at the edge of the desk that he sees the vase.

It’s in the middle of the table, hidden from view by the height of the doubled monitors arranged in front of it. Shizuo hadn’t seen it from the door, but it’s perfectly obvious from his new angle. He pauses, startled by this unexpected display of ornamentation in a room so barren of decoration; and then he blinks as his attention catches and holds to the thread of recognition that runs through him at the white flowers and green ivy spilling out of the vase.

Shizuo sets the cup with his newest bouquet down at the edge of the desk and reaches out to brush his fingers against one of the daisies. They are just as bright as when he saw them in Izaya’s flower shop, unaffected by the time that has passed. It’s strange to realize it’s been no more than a few days; Shizuo feels as if he’s passed through a lifetime of realizations in the time between seeing Izaya smiling over this bouquet and ordering the roses and lilac still in Izaya’s shop. He touches his fingers to the ivy, gently to keep from crushing the leaves, and as he lets his hand fall he realizes he’s smiling and doesn’t try to stop.

It’s not difficult to find Izaya’s bedroom. Shizuo had been concerned he would come up the stairs to be confronted with a dozen shut doors and no indication of what hides behind them; but the same open space that speaks so clearly to the cost of the apartment around him persists on the second floor, as he continues down the open balcony to the enclosed hallway at the far end. There are only two doors, one on either side, and one of them has been left open to provide a clear line of sight to the wide bed within. Shizuo comes up to the doorway, pausing at the threshold as he looks inside to find Izaya sprawled to long limbs across dark sheets.

He’s moved fast. Shizuo didn’t linger downstairs for long, only a handful of minutes at the most, but Izaya has stripped and dropped his clothes unceremoniously at the side of the bed so he can stretch himself out across the mattress in nothing more than an expanse of bare skin as pale as a canvas awaiting a brush. Shizuo’s steps stutter to a halt, his forward motion stilled as he stands in the doorway staring at the length of Izaya’s legs, the flex of muscle at his shoulders, the sweeping curve of his back; and then Izaya tips his head to glance back over one bare shoulder, and raises an eyebrow to an invitation that gains force from the spreading curve of the smile at his lips.

“Shizu-chan,” he says, drawling the nickname to lilting heat as he turns against the bed. Shizuo’s gaze follows the movement of Izaya’s hips, abandoning the flash of his smile for the motion of his legs as he shifts to roll from stomach to side, but Izaya stops short of falling onto his back under Shizuo’s distracted stare. He pauses on his side, braced between hip and elbow, and then there’s an impact at Shizuo’s chest and Shizuo blinks and returns to himself to look down at the bottle of lube that has just landed at his feet.

“Might as well make yourself useful,” Izaya comments, as lightly as if they’re talking over the counter of his flower shop instead of the span of a bedroom whose air seems to be gaining in heat with every breath Shizuo takes. “Unless you’re more into watching?” Shizuo glances back up as Izaya twists a little farther on the bed to let his shoulders fall to the sheets as he smiles shadows up at Shizuo watching him. “I could give you a hands-on demonstration.” Izaya slides his hand across the sheets, fingers reaching down to the shadowed tilt of his hips still angled away from Shizuo, and Shizuo makes a wordless noise in his throat and bends over to seize the bottle Izaya threw at him. From the bed Izaya laughs, a dark sound spilling liquid in his throat, and as Shizuo moves towards the mattress Izaya tips himself forward onto his stomach again.

Shizuo doesn’t bother with stripping his clothes free. His slacks are straining at his hips, pulled tight by the weight of his cock pressing hard to the inside seam, but he has the bottle of lube in one hand and wet spilling across the fingers of the other, and with the space between himself and Izaya disintegrating with his every motion his first concern is pressing his hands to bare skin, to closing the gap that has taunted him since the first moment Izaya smiled at him from across the distance of a flower shop. The bottle falls to the sheets beside him, his knee presses to the mattress between Izaya’s, and when he reaches out Izaya is already rocking his hips up to meet him, his body arching at the sheets to fit itself to the weight of Shizuo’s hold. His knees open, shifting at the bed to brace his weight as he turns his face down against the sheets, and Shizuo reaches out to press slippery fingers against the flush of Izaya’s bare skin.

Izaya answers the first touch of Shizuo’s hand, responding with a groan that Shizuo can feel run down the full length of his spine as if he has done far more than simply weight his touch against the other’s entrance. Shizuo feels the heat knot in his belly and pull tighter at the front of his slacks, and when he pushes forward it is with the ease of instinct, the same reflex that drives the spiking flare of his temper unravelled and recast into something utterly novel. There is resistance for a moment, the involuntary reflex of Izaya’s body pushing against the intrusion of Shizuo’s, and then Izaya looses his breath, exhaling with the force of a moan, and he opens for Shizuo’s touch, giving way with such sudden grace that Shizuo thrusts deeper than he intends, carried forward on the impulse of desire flexing at the length of his arm. He sinks into Izaya, his motion bearing forward the full length of his finger, and against the bed Izaya shudders and moans into the pillow under him.

“Sorry,” Shizuo says, but he’s moving in spite of the reflexive apology, his hand working into a rhythm too innate for him to resist, and Izaya is opening to him as readily, his knees sliding wider as his shoulders flex against the sheets. “Are you...am I hurting you?”

Izaya groans. His thighs flex, pulling taut on effort as his spine arches to rock him up against Shizuo’s touch. “Is that the first thing you think of when someone moans for you?” Another shudder of heat pulses through Shizuo, tingling through his chest and fixing to certain weight at his hips before Izaya tilts his head to glance back over his shoulder. His eyes are darker than Shizuo has ever before seen them, the flickering threat of crimson entirely consumed in the shadow of his loose hair, but his smile is that same flashing blade it ever is, bright and glittering as he bares his teeth at Shizuo behind him. “I can take a little fingerfucking.” His gaze slides away from Shizuo’s face, lingering in the long pull of a caress in its path downwards. Shizuo sees his lashes flutter, sees his smile give way to a breath that quivers audibly in his throat as Izaya sets it free. “I’m a lot more interested in  _ that_” with a jerk of his chin to add specificity to the sultry clarity of the sound in his throat. “Why don’t you get me opened up and we’ll see if you can hurt me or not.”

Shizuo coughs a startled laugh in the back of his throat. “You make it sound like a goal.”

Izaya smiles. “Isn’t it?” Shizuo’s fingers flex involuntarily at Izaya’s hip and Izaya peals a laugh and turns his head back down to the sheets. “Don’t worry about me, Shizu-chan. I’m sure I can handle anything you have to give.”

It’s a transparent taunt. Shizuo recognizes that, in a distant part of his mind: the same part that knows that he ought to steady his hold on Izaya’s hip, ought to bow his head and focus on the gentle care that the action deserves, whatever Izaya is trying to needle him into. But his body is already reacting, without waiting for input from his more rational mind, and when his hand moves at Izaya’s hip it’s to press his fingers to bruising force to fix the other still while he pulls the slick of his touch free of Izaya’s body. Izaya takes a breath at the sheets, preparation for another spill of mockery or innuendo or both; and Shizuo pushes sharply into him, two of his fingers coupled together to force Izaya open in a burst of motion. Izaya’s voice gives way to a moan, stark and startled as he seizes a fist at the blankets beneath him, and the sound of that response runs through Shizuo with greater heat than his anger has ever granted him. He leans forward, his hold at Izaya’s hip shifting to pin the other flush to the bed, and when he moves his fingers carry the sharp thrust of the same instinct he can feel throbbing a dull ache at the solid weight of his cock inside his pants.

Shizuo doesn’t notice Izaya’s silence right away. For the first strokes his attention is narrowed to the flex of his arm, to the tension of Izaya’s body gripping against his, to the rush of his heartbeat in his ears and the press and pull of his fingers demanding Izaya’s surrender to them. And Izaya’s words have evaporated, coherency given way with the force of Shizuo’s fingers pushing into him; his speech has melted into dragging gasps against the sheets, his body gone slack but for the tremor of clenching heat that flexes along his spine with each forward press of Shizuo’s touch. But then those go silent too, until Shizuo suddenly realizes that the only thing he can hear in the room is the slick wet of his touch working Izaya open. He still has his grip on Izaya’s hip, is still holding him pinned flat to the bed, but Izaya’s freed his hand from under himself. It’s up over his head now, his elbow angled so his arm is cradling the top of his head, and his other hand is stretched out, his fingers pressing to the headboard with so much force that Shizuo can see the tension trembling at Izaya’s wrist.

Shizuo goes still immediately, the pulsing weight of arousal retreating before the icy chill that strikes him. Izaya makes a sound against the sheets but it’s wordless and so low and dark that Shizuo can’t make sense of it as plea or protest.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, and starts to slide his fingers back. “Are you…”

His touch pulls free, his fingers easing back, and Izaya jerks, his body tensing as he groans against the bed. “ _Ah_ ,” he blurts, and his hand clutches against the sheets. “ _Fuck_.”

Shizuo drops his hand from Izaya’s hip, his blood running cold enough that even the ache of the erection that seemed all but permanent flags in its insistent pulse at the front of his fly. “I hurt you.”

Izaya groans. “ _No_ ,” he says, and pushes against the bed to turn so quickly Shizuo doesn’t have time to pull back before Izaya is reaching up to grab at his arm. Izaya’s legs are still caught around his, tangled by Shizuo’s knees interposing between them, but Izaya still twists until he’s almost on his back and braced up by one elbow as he fixes Shizuo in place. His face is flushed, his mouth strange and soft with shadow, and his fingers are so tight at Shizuo’s arm Shizuo can feel fingernails digging crescents into his skin right through his sleeve. “It’s not—” Izaya scoffs in the back of his throat and shakes his head sharply. “You’re not  _ hurting _ me.”

Shizuo stares at Izaya’s face, not following the other’s logic. Then Izaya shifts his knee against the bed and Shizuo’s gaze is pulled down in spite of himself, abandoning the intricacies of the other’s face for the pressing curiosity that comes with the opportunity of seeing the rest of Izaya’s body. His skin is pale, unmarked by ink or scar down the whole of his chest and along the flat of his stomach; and then Shizuo sees his cock, steep and straining with heat, and he loses his breath at once.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, and looks back to Izaya’s face. “You were going to come?”

Izaya huffs a weak laugh. “At least it’s not just flowers you don’t understand,” he says, and there should be the teeth of an insult on that but the words go weak and shaky with arousal and Shizuo can’t remember how to be angry for the desire surging back to reclaim its ceded territory. “I’ll make sure to announce it for you next time.”

Shizuo pulls back across the bed, rocking away to give Izaya space to move. He’s expecting Izaya to fall back onto his stomach, to offer the length of his thighs and the smooth curve of his ass for Shizuo behind him, but Izaya pulls his knees up instead so he can fall onto his back and face Shizuo instead. His face is flushed, spots of brilliant color high at the arch of his cheekbones; his lips are parted, his breathing working hard enough in his chest that Shizuo can see the motion as Izaya turns over and angles his knees wide. The dark of his cock stands out in sharp contrast to the pale of his skin, flushed heavy with arousal where it is arcing towards his stomach; a droplet of wet heat falls from the head to spill over his navel.

“Come  _ on_,” Izaya says, and Shizuo’s gaze jumps up to find Izaya’s forehead creased on tension, his mouth twisting on something that sounds like mockery but looks like desperation. “Are you waiting for an invitation?” He tilts his knees wider and angles his hips up at the bed. “ _Fuck _ me, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo wasn’t, exactly; but the directness of Izaya’s words cuts right past any lingering hesitation that rationality might still be enforcing on him, grounding out so low in his belly that he’s groaning wordless agreement instead of protest as he reaches out to flatten both his hands to the pale of Izaya’s open thighs. Izaya arches up immediately, moaning encouragement as Shizuo presses in over him, and he’s reaching out too, wrenching open the buckle of Shizuo’s belt as he drags at the zipper of the fly before he even has the button loosened. Shizuo’s attention drops for a moment, struggling over the necessity of breaking free of the restraint of his clothes, but Izaya is unfastening his slacks with startling speed even as he offers up a breathless laugh.

“At least get your pants off first,” he says. “You  _ have _ done this before, I hope? You understand the basic premise?” His tone is mocking but his hands are fast, undoing Shizuo’s belt and releasing the tension of his fly before Shizuo can think to free his hands from the grip he has on Izaya’s thighs, and then Izaya is fumbling a hand inside his loosened clothes and his fingers are tightening around Shizuo’s cock and Shizuo’s head is going back, his throat working on a groan of relief as his hips buck forward to fuck up against the slide of Izaya’s hand over him.

Izaya breathes out hard. “Good enough for me,” he says, sounding so breathless that he can’t sustain the edge of mockery and it dies to liquid sincerity at his lips. Shizuo looks up to his face, startled by the tremor running itself to weakness in Izaya’s voice, but Izaya is looking down, his lashes tipped and his lips parted as he pulls Shizuo’s cock free from his clothes. His cheeks are dark with that feverish flush, his mouth soft with an unprecedented absence of words, and Shizuo keeps staring at him as Izaya draws him in, letting his weight drop him back to the bed as the grip of his fingers guides Shizuo’s hips to slot between his open thighs.

Izaya’s hips angle up, his hold draws Shizuo in against him, and as Shizuo’s cock presses to wet heat his mind goes blank, his thoughts blurring away beneath the insistent pulse of arousal in him. His hips jerk, his body thrusting forward against the guidance of Izaya’s hold, and his cock drives forward past Izaya’s hand to sink into the grip of his body. Izaya shudders beneath him, his body quaking as his hand falls away to seize bracing strength at Shizuo’s hip instead, but Shizuo is moving on reflex, now, his hips rocking rhythmic force to settle his cock deeper into Izaya. His hands are clenching at Izaya’s thighs, his body canting forward to spread the other’s legs wider, to pin him down to the bed beneath the demand of Shizuo’s weight; and then he rocks in, and his hips meet Izaya’s, his body stilled by the feel of Izaya clenching around the full length of Shizuo’s cock inside him.

Shizuo stays where he is for a moment, his mouth open and breathing rasping as the first surge of relief washes itself to white-out calm in the back of his thoughts. It’s only once the initial flush of pleasure has passed that he can return himself to the present, can recall the reality of his position: pressing Izaya down, his thumb digging into the soft place just beneath the other’s knee, his weight urging Izaya’s legs back almost to his chest. Shizuo flinches, grimacing an apology as he tries to shift himself backwards over his knees to ease some of the force; but Izaya moves as quickly as Shizuo does, his hand snapping out to seize a desperate fist of Shizuo’s shirt as he gasps. “ _Don’t_.”

“Oh,” Shizuo pants. “Sorry, I’m—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Izaya says again, more sharply as his fingers tighten at Shizuo’s shirt, and Shizuo’s words fall to obedient silence as he goes still. Izaya is tense beneath him, his shoulders flexing and his head lifted from the support of the pillow; his jaw is set, his mouth taut with the same pressure Shizuo can see, can  _ feel _ quivering helpless force through his body. Izaya looks desperate, strained to the very edge of control; and Shizuo stares at his face, looking at the shadow of his eyes, the tension of his mouth, the flex at his jaw, before he looks down to the impossible heat of Izaya’s cock straining with no more persuasion than the press of Shizuo’s fingers and cock pushing him open.

Shizuo swallows. He looks back to Izaya’s face. “Do you want me to keep going?”

Izaya gasps an exhale. Shizuo can feel tension flex hard against him. “ _Yes_.”

Shizuo takes a breath. He draws back, easing free as he watches Izaya’s face, as he tracks the flutter of the other’s lashes and the effort of swallowing in his throat; as he thrusts himself sharply forward, as Izaya’s head tips back, as his mouth opens on a moan Shizuo can feel more than he can hear. Shizuo’s pulse skips, speeding towards a surge of renewed arousal, and when he pushes at Izaya’s legs Izaya falls back to the bed, giving way to the force of Shizuo’s palms against him as his fingers flex convulsive heat on Shizuo’s shirtfront. Shizuo comes forward into him, once, again, each thrust stroking more smoothly as Izaya eases around the strain of his cock, and beneath him Izaya’s expression is giving way, his mouth softening and lashes dipping and throat shuddering on the same tension rippling through his body with each movement of Shizuo’s into him.

“Like this?” Shizuo asks, although he doesn’t need the confirmation, not when he can see pleasure framing itself to the part of Izaya’s lips, can feel it flexing tighter against his cock with each forward pulse of his hips. He’s breathing harder, panting until it’s hard to speak, but Izaya isn’t speaking at all, his head is tipped to the side and he’s trembling through the whole of his body pinned beneath Shizuo’s. “Is this what you want, Izaya?”

Izaya groans, the sound building from the strain of his legs beneath Shizuo’s palms to rise through him before it spills from his open mouth. “Yes,” he gasps, and there is no mockery on his tongue at all, nothing but sincerity bought by the force of Shizuo’s body working on his. “Yes, Shizu-chan, yes, I,  _ I_—” His legs jerk, his hands clench; Shizuo leans harder into his hold on Izaya’s knees, bracing him down to the bed as he thrusts harder, as Izaya’s breathing cracks around a whimper. “Shizu, Shizu-chan, fuck,  _ fuck_, I’m—” and Shizuo’s hips snap forward, and he feels Izaya’s body tighten around him.

There’s a moment of impossible strain, as Izaya’s mouth comes open and his body flexes; and then he falls back, releasing all his tension at once, and he’s coming beneath Shizuo’s hold, his cock pulsing in time with the waves of heat clenching down around Shizuo’s length. Shizuo gusts an exhale, feeling Izaya’s pleasure as a premonition of his own, and he drops his hand from Izaya’s knee to grip at his hip instead to brace the boneless heat of his body still against the stroke of Shizuo fucking him through his orgasm. Izaya shudders under him, his hand clutching to grip the back of Shizuo’s neck as he answers Shizuo’s movement with fluttering aftershocks, and Shizuo ducks his head and gasps a breath as the tension in him spills over into relief, desire unfurling into wave after wave of pleasure as his orgasm chases down the trembling echo of Izaya’s.

Shizuo spends what feels like an endless span of time riding out the aftershocks shuddering through him. His mind is distant, wandering free of the constraints of logic or reason; each tremor of sensation unfurls another expanse of patience, pushes his awareness of time back by another unmeasured span. By the time the last is rippling through him he feels the afterimage resonant in the whole of his body, stripping the tension from him to leave his shoulders, his heartbeat, even his grip at Izaya’s hip gentle with the appreciation that follows in the wake of the immediacy of need. Shizuo blinks, even that simple movement intentional and all-encompassing in the echoing peace of satisfaction, and as his vision comes back into focus he finds himself looking down at Izaya still sprawled beneath him.

Izaya has made no motion to extricate himself from beneath the press of Shizuo’s body. His hand is still pressing to the back of Shizuo’s neck, his fingers winding into the bleached-blond tangle of the other’s hair, and his eyes are open but his gaze is hazy, wandering with inattentive focus at Shizuo’s shoulder like he has forgotten there is anything of more interest to look at. His cheeks are still flushed, the color painting his pale skin with a humanity that Shizuo has never before seen in the crisp beauty of his features: it’s as if the mask of his usual elegance has cracked and fallen away, leaving behind a sincerity that Shizuo hadn’t so much as suspected Izaya was capable of. It leaves him speechless, breathless, silent in his fixed attention before Izaya blinks beneath Shizuo’s stare and lifts his gaze to meet Shizuo’s own.

There is a flicker across his face, a widening of his eyes and a parting of his lips that breathes a moment of panic; but it is only for a breath, hardly a glimpse before he’s sinking back into languid weight and darkening his gaze beneath the angle of his lashes. “What’s the matter, Shizu-chan?” His mouth drags up at the corner, threatening a grin that doesn’t quite clear the haze of pleasure from his eyes. “Do you need something else translated for you?”

The words are teasing, lilting to mockery even if Izaya’s gaze is still too dark on satisfaction to muster his usual cutting stare. But there’s no answering grate of temper, no rising tide of anger. Shizuo just looks at Izaya, at all his confusion and frustration unfolded into a certainty too deep for him to doubt, even if he can’t explain it; and he shakes he head.

“No,” he says. “I got it.” And he leans down to cover the tilt of Izaya’s mouth beneath the weight of his own.


	20. Meaning

Shizuo gets out of his clothes eventually. It’s a slower process than it should be, and one drawn out by the teasing Izaya resumes as soon as he has collected his scattered attention back to its usual sharp edge, but Shizuo’s temper has given way entirely, melted by the heat of Izaya’s body and the taste of his mouth to leave him heavy and content and more at peace than he can recall ever being before. His clothes end up over the edge of the bed, cast free of the sheets to fall atop Izaya’s dropped shirt and pants, and Shizuo himself gives in to the urging of Izaya’s hands to lie face-down across the tangle they’ve made of the blankets, his head pillowed on his arms and eyes shut on drifting comfort while Izaya traces patterns across the bare skin of his back.

“When did you get this done?” Izaya’s voice has resumed its usual edge, flashing with a brilliance Shizuo imagines he can see like lightning behind his closed eyes, but his fingers are surprisingly gentle as they trail across the dip between Shizuo’s shoulderblades and down the length of his back.

“A while ago,” Shizuo says without lifting his head. “I wanted to get a back piece for years before I saved up the money for it. It tooks months to get it all lined and colored.”

Izaya’s palm presses to the petals inked against Shizuo’s shoulderblade. His fingers sweep a smooth arc across the leaves marked at the other’s skin. “It had to hurt.”

Shizuo shrugs. “I guess,” he says. “It’s alright. Feels kind of soothing, almost.”

Izaya’s laugh crackles through the air. “Shizu-chan, I never figured you for a masochist.”

Shizuo grimaces. “Shut up,” he says, although without much hope of Izaya listening. “Why, do you want one of your own?”

“I knew you’d do this,” Izaya sighs dramatically. “Get my clothes off and in less than an hour you’d be wanting to stick me full of needles.”

Shizuo snorts. “I didn’t need to get your clothes off for that.” Izaya laughs again, his hand sweeping down Shizuo’s spine across the color inked over his back, and Shizuo smiles into the pillow before he turns his head and opens an eye to look at the man next to him.

Izaya hasn’t moved to put any of his clothes back on, or even to half-cover himself under a blanket as Shizuo has. He’s lying on his side and pushed up onto one elbow as he slides his fingers along Shizuo’s back, looking as supremely unselfconscious about his lack of clothing as about the evidence of their mutual pleasure still sticky at his stomach and the inside of his thighs. Shizuo’s attention flickers down Izaya’s body, his blood stirring towards renewed heat as he glances at the length of the other’s legs, the tilt of his shoulders, the weight of his cock soft and heavy against his thigh, and Izaya hums a sound at the farthest point of his throat and draws his fingers back up Shizuo’s spine to his hair.

“You’re going to hurt yourself thinking so hard,” he purrs. “What’s on your mind, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo is sure he knows how he will answer. His limbs are still heavy with satisfaction, his body warm against the bed, but he can feel the thud of his heart beating faster in his chest, can track the slow pulse of heat swelling him at the sheets. He lifts a hand from under his head to reach out for Izaya’s waist, his hand fitting to petal-smooth skin beneath his touch; and then he frowns, his focus fragmenting to the distraction of curiosity as he looks up. “What were you doing with the bouquets?”

Izaya lifts one eyebrow sharply, his mouth catching a smile as his fingers wander through Shizuo’s hair. “Which ones?” he asks. “You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that, I’m afraid. Unless you mean you’re unclear on what exactly it is I do for employment?”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “ _My _ bouquets. The ones you sent me.” He turns over onto his side on the bed. “If you were actually pining for me—” Izaya’s lips press tight together as his face colors dark, but Shizuo talks over whatever protest he might think to make, “—why were you sending me flowers saying  _ I hate you_?”

Izaya coughs to clear his throat. His gaze slides away from Shizuo’s. “I wasn’t.”

Shizuo scoffs. “You did. On  _ multiple _ occasions. You texted me to gloat about it, even. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

“I didn’t forget,” Izaya says quickly. He’s still not looking at Shizuo’s face; his gaze is fixed on a corner of the sheet tangled underneath them, where his fingers are catching to pull against the cloth. “I remember sending you bouquets, Shizu-chan. I put them together myself, after all.”

Shizuo frowns. “Okay,” he says, pulling the word slow on confusion. “So then—”

Izaya huffs. “They didn’t mean  _ I hate you_.”

That brings Shizuo up short. He stares at Izaya for a moment, his thoughts reeling on the shock of this statement before seizing hold of certainty and returning to earth with a jolt. “ _What_? Yes they did. Every single flower you sent me meant  _ hatred _ or  _ you’re the worst _ or  _ fuck you _ or something.”

Izaya’s gaze flickers up underneath the arch of one curving brow. “I never sent you a bouquet that meant  _ fuck you_,” he says. The corner of his mouth catches upwards on a glittering smile. “That would have been a little direct, don’t you think?” Shizuo closes his mouth sharply, his cheeks warming with sudden self-consciousness, and Izaya laughs and falls back to lie across the sheets as he stretches with a great show of languid appreciation.

“I wasn’t saying I hate you,” he says before he turns back onto his side and pillows his head at the crook of his elbow. “You weren’t paying attention.”

Shizuo frowns down in answer to Izaya’s teasing smile. “I  _ was_,” he says. “I looked up every flower in each of those damn bouquets, and every one—”

“Dogbane,” Izaya says suddenly, his voice breaking clearly over Shizuo’s. “Mock orange. Foxglove.” He tilts his head to the side to look up through his lashes at Shizuo’s face. “Notice a trend?”

Shizuo’s scowl tightens. “No.”

“Counterfeit,” Izaya says. “Insincerity. Falsehood.” Shizuo’s gaze goes unfocused, his attention slipping away from Izaya’s smirk under the force of his suddenly intent thoughts, and Izaya turns over on the bed, bracing himself on his elbows as his motion bumps his hip against Shizuo’s thigh as if on accident. Izaya tips his head to the side and purses his lips as he considers the fit of his fingers against each other. “I told you I was lying right in the bouquet itself. And if I was lying about hating you…”

“Oh come  _ on_,” Shizuo protests, though the words come weak under the shock of epiphany still ringing through him. “Who would have figured out a...a  _ code _ in a bunch of  _ flowers_?”

Izaya shrugs. “Not you, apparently.” His tone is light and airy; the look he casts at Shizuo through his lashes is anything but. “I was beginning to worry I’d have to get on my knees and open my mouth before you took the hint.”

“That’s not a  _ hint_,” Shizuo says. “That’s a…” but his imagination has latched onto the image lined by Izaya’s words and colored by the weight of his gaze, and coherency evaporates from his lips as his cock swells to renewed arousal.

Izaya hums in the back of his throat and shifts his hips at the bed, rocking himself sideways to press to Shizuo’s leg as his gaze slides down the other’s body with as much intent as a touch. “What’s that?” he says. “I don’t think I quite caught your point.” He lifts his eyes to find Shizuo’s as he curves his mouth on a smile. “You seem to do better with actions than words. Why don’t you show instead of tell?”

Shizuo growls at the back of his throat, a sound something between frustration and amusement, but when he reaches out Izaya just laughs at the touch of his hands, the sound bright and brilliant as springtime. Shizuo twists over the bed, catching Izaya’s legs between his as he pushes the other’s hips down to the mattress, and Izaya surrenders at once, his smile still lingering at his lips as Shizuo pins him to the sheets. Shizuo leans close, Izaya between his legs and against his hands and beneath his shadow, and when he presses his lips to the soft skin beneath Izaya’s ear he doesn’t need any translation for the hum of pleasure he feels against his tongue.


End file.
